


come with me, my love

by spicyboyfriend



Category: NCT (Band), SM Rookies
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Love, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hanahaki Disease, Illnesses, Love Confessions, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Sick Character, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 14:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8405155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyboyfriend/pseuds/spicyboyfriend
Summary: The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs out flower petals.
  Jung Jaehyun, he thought again while he watched Doyoung lift a mini pitcher of cream, his lips parting as he asked Jaehyun a question, deal with the pain for moments like these. Please.Bear the pain of this in exchange for the smile on Kim Doyoung’s face.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be like a max 5k word fic with some vague angst and mainly love stuff and instead it turned into an exploration of the disease and family and friends.... with some angst and love stuff.
> 
> Some stuff before you read:  
> \- Tagged with SM Rookies because their trainee times are in here too idk.  
> \- Graphic depictions/descriptions of illnesses include: vomiting, blood, suffocation, and hospitalization. Wow, those sound awful. This is awful.  
> \- I made up everything about their trainee times! I have no idea when they actually first met, and used guesstimates based on when they were cast into SM and stuff. I also used a few sources for their dorm situations, but that's all completely made up too. I mean, everything in this fic is made up.  
> \- Please let me know if you find typos! I only edited this once bc it's 20k, and I don't have a beta reader for my stories! Thanks~

**2013**

There was something so unapologetically beautiful in the gentleness of Doyoung’s eyes when he looked at Jaehyun.

Something dreamlike when he parted his lips and said Jaehyun’s name, his birth name.

_“Yoonoh.”_

And Jaehyun smiled, let his eyes flutter shut as he grinned so wide and pinched one of Doyoung’s cheeks, despite his protests that he was older, and they had only just met.

_“Why did you change your name?”_

Jaehyun didn’t have an answer to that question. His family had asked him so many times before, he knew that there wasn’t anything that would really explain why he felt the need to change his name. To create his own image, become his own person, or just a selfish desire to have control, he didn’t know. So he shrugged, and Doyoung quirked his lips in a smile of part-disbelief and part-admiration.

_“I think Jaehyun is a nice name. It’s nice to meet you. My name is Dongyoung, but I prefer Doyoung.”_

And they didn’t talk about it again after that. He only smiled at him. Smiled and said, _“Jaehyun-ssi!”_ The way he said it shouldn’t have made Jaehyun’s heart melt in his chest, shouldn’t have made his mouth feel dry and his head dizzy, and Jaehyun already knew what was going to happen when he tripped over his feet sprinting to his room when Doyoung said he wanted to talk to the others for a little. He knew when he coughed into his hand. He felt it in the back of his throat; he felt it in his chest; blooming, blossoming, like a miracle and an omen encompassed in one small, frail flower petal.

Lilac and lusterless in color, in it’s veins was a promise. Jaehyun swallowed thickly, searching for more petals in his airway, and found none. He rushed to the bathroom, flushed singular petal and sunk to the floor.

  
  
  
  


Jaehyun feigned illness the next day when Doyoung knocked on his door and asked if he wanted to go out for coffee to get to know each other better. He feigned illness for another day after. And another. And on the fourth day, Doyoung didn’t ask anymore. Jaehyun didn’t know how thankful he should have been that the other trainee had moved on from him, had no qualms about spending time with the others who would gladly give it to him, considering Jaehyun apparently didn’t want to. But Jaehyun told himself that it was good. Purple was reversible. Purple could be undone, he had heard. Purple meant love at first sight, but first sight wasn’t always _true_. He made the resolution to ignore Doyoung for as long as possible before the budding roses in his chest took over in full bloom.

On the fourth day, Jaehyun, full of fear and rosebuds, ran to the kitchen and grabbed whatever first caught his eye. The “get-better-soon” soup the other trainees brought him was nice, but he was _hungry_.

On the fourth day, Jaehyun turned on his heel, rushed back to the hallway, and ran straight into Kim Doyoung.

On the fourth day, Jung Jaehyun coughed, stifled it by biting down on his bottom lip, and forced himself to swallow another flower petal.

“Jaehyun-ssi.” Doyoung said, quickly standing up and reaching his hand out for Jaehyun. After taking a second to stare at Doyoung’s thin fingers, he took them in his own. While his chest tightened and he strained to breathe comfortably, Jaehyun savored the warmth of Doyoung’s skin against his own, stood up and squeezed. Doyoung didn’t seem to notice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to run into you. O-oh, there’s food everywhere.” Doyoung looked to their feet, rice and a mess of chicken and vegetables scattered on the floor. “I’m so sorry, I’ll clean it up.”

Jaehyun watched as Doyoung grabbed two towels, wet one of them with hot water and fell to his knees while wiping up the mess the two had made by running into each other. Jaehyun watched, and then dropped to his knees a second after.

“Jaehyun-ssi, you aren’t feeling well. You should go lay down. I’ll call Taeyong-hyung.”

“Doyoung-hyung?”

“Er, yes?”

“Would you like to go out for coffee?”

Doyoung hesitated, eyebrows furrowed as he shook his head. Jaehyun watched as Doyoung parted his lips, his thin, pink heart-shaped lips, and something inside of him settled. The tension in his chest, how a wave of butterflies and roses threatened to spill from him at any second, even his overworked heartbeat in his chest: all of it was quelled at the sight of Doyoung’s timid smile.

“We should clean this up before we talk about going out for coffee.” He said sheepishly, and Jaehyun laughed for the first time in four days.

“No way, we have to clean it up?” Jaehyun smiled. “I thought we’d leave it for the others.”

“Smart-aleck.” Doyoung said, sweeping up a pile of rice and vegetables into the towel and moving to stand up. “I’d like that.”

“Mm?”

“I’d like to go out with you.”

  
  
  
  


They told him not to talk about it with anybody after he had been scouted, Jaehyun remembered.

His family never really brought it up much. Mentioned once or twice that he had gotten it from a girl at school, a girl that had a crush on him and thought it would be cute to give him a pile of the flower petals she kept in the pocket of her dresses every day at school. Jaehyun touched them. He held them in his hands, and he remembered thinking that the color yellow had never been so vibrant before in his life as it was in that moment.

Jaehyun thanked her for the flower petals.

He thanked her, and tucked them in his pocket, until he got home and they spilled from his pocket.

 _“Yoonoh, where did you get petals like that from?”_ His mother asked when they fell on the floor.

 _“A girl.”_ He answered easily. _“From the pockets of her dress.”_

His mother didn’t catch on at first, just nodded and let him pick up the petals before he tossed them in the garbage. Her pale face under the lights of the kitchen lights made her look tired, more tired than he had ever seen her in his life. He remembered that, thinking of how he wanted to take all of her pain and stress and bear it for her.

 _“My son, did she give you whole flowers?”_ She asked after putting out her cigarette and puffing out a long breath of smoke. Jaehyun pursed his lips and shook his head.

_“Only petals.”_

And then his mother stood up, grabbed the garbage can from its place and pulled the bag from its place. She tied it up, tossed it outside for Jaehyun’s father to put in the can when he had time.

_“What was her name?”_

Jaehyun told her. And the next day, he came home from school with orange petals, but his mother wasn’t sitting at the dinner table anymore. Instead, on the couch sat his parents, and two strangers he had never seen before. His father looked furious, and his mother lacked an expression on her tired face. She crushed another cigarette and looked at the two strangers as Jaehyun pulled out another messy handful of petals.

_“She gave me more today!”_

  
  
  
  


Going out proved to be harder than Jaehyun thought it would be. He sat across from Doyoung, eyes tracing over the curves and dips of his fingers wrapped around his cup of coffee. Doyoung pursed his lips, let his eyes flicker from the table to Jaehyun before taking a sip of his drink.

“Are you feeling better?” Doyoung said. “You know, because you weren’t feeling well before.”

“I am.” Jaehyun nodded and grinned. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come out with you sooner! I really wanted to, but I didn’t want to risk getting you sick. That’d be an awful first impression.”

Doyoung smiled. All he did was smile, and Jaehyun’s heart leaped in his chest, throat tightening expectantly as he grabbed his coffee and downed a gulp of the lukewarm drink. Doyoung furrowed his brows.

“You like your coffee plain?” He said. Jaehyun set his cup down, stared at his cup and realized he hadn’t even mixed any cream or sugar in. Now he could feel the bitterness settling in his throat, but it was better than choking on a flower petal he knew was going to make its way up.

“O-oh, yeah! I drink it like this all the time, it’s, uh, better that way.”

“Isn’t it bitter?”

“Yeah.” Jaehyun choked on a cough, covered his mouth with his hand and nodded. “Super bitter. I can’t stand coffee like that, it’s actually disgusting and I have no idea why I lied.”

Doyoung burst into a laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He lifted his hand to his mouth with an embarrassed blush on his cheeks. Jaehyun listened to the lilt and tone of his laugh, to the gentleness in his giggles as he covered his mouth and looked down. And then Jaehyun was laughing with him, resting his face in his hands and sighing after his laughter died down into nothing more than a few fading chuckles.

“I swear I’m not always this nervous in front of people.” Jaehyun began. “Really, I’m not all that awkward.”

“You’re funny.” Doyoung wiped one of his eyes, pushed his dark brown hair away from his face. The timid nature of his movements sent Jaehyun into a nervous sweat, his heart constricted by thorns and needles. Dull pain settled in his gut, Jaehyun dropping his hand to his stomach and clenching at his shirt, as if holding onto the material would somehow make it go away.

Doyoung was curious in a way that seemed almost childish and innocent. They talked about Jaehyun’s life, about living in America and learning a new language, and Jaehyun listened to Doyoung gush about his talented older brother while leaning his chin in the palm of his hand. Despite the pain of warding off another coughing fit from being so close in proximity to Doyoung, the occasional brushes of their feet under the table, the giddy smile on Doyoung’s face when Jaehyun reassured him he was listening, Jaehyun could feel bubbles and butterflies fluttering and floating in his chest. Even though the pain was there, he ignored it all.

 _Jung Jaehyun_ , _you’re weak for falling for someone like this._

But when Doyoung ducked his head down to smile and laugh, Jaehyun nudged him under the table.

“Hey.” Jaehyun spoke without formality, Doyoung meeting his gaze and quirking a brow at the sudden confident tone Jaehyun had taken on. “Stop hiding your smile like that.”

“Ah.” Doyoung widened his eyes in surprise, jaw dropping only a fraction as he flushed. “You caught onto that?”

“As if you’re hiding it?” Jaehyun continued. “Yeah, I caught on.”

Doyoung scratched his cheek with his index finger, sipped on his coffee and shook his head afterwards. “I’ve been told my smile is too big, you know. Like, it doesn’t look good when I smile? That kind of thing... yeah. So it’s instinct now. To cover it, I mean. Jeez, I don’t normally stutter this much when I talk.”

“Whoever told you that has problems.” Jaehyun said, and Doyoung smiled wider, fingers twitching on the table as if moving to cover his shy smile again. “Really, don’t do it. You look fine when you smile.”

Doyoung blushed brightly out of sheer embarrassment at Jaehyun’s words, face heated and warm as he nodded and met his gaze. There it was again. Jaehyun felt a jab at his insides, eyes watering in pain as he willed himself to swallow down a budding cough in the back of his throat.

“Thank you,” Doyoung said, “Jaehyun-ah.”

Jaehyun flinched at the name, a dusty pink blush settling on the apples of his cheeks, and he smiled, smiled so wide he thought his face would get stuck that way.

 _Jung Jaehyun,_ he thought again while he watched Doyoung lift a mini pitcher of cream, his lips parting as he asked Jaehyun a question, _deal with the pain for moments like these. Please._

_Bear the pain of this in exchange for the smile on Kim Doyoung’s face._

  
  
  
  


When they made it back to their dorm rooms, Jaehyun rushed to the bathroom, keeled over the toilet, and vomited up every last drop of coffee he had drank that day. Amongst the dark, bitter coffee and bits of muffin he and Doyoung had bought and split together, three purple flower petals rose to the surface. He flushed them down with the bile and vomit, rested his cheek on the porcelain, despite thinking of how disgusting it was to put his face there.

Purple was supposed to be easily undone. Purple wasn’t a guarantee. Purple didn’t mean anything, he reminded himself, but still found tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Purple may not have meant anything, but Kim Doyoung... he meant something.

  
  
  
  


**2014**

Shades of purple, hues of lavender and lilac lingered in Jaehyun’s chest for a exactly a year and three days. Coughing fits and tight chests, difficulty breathing, all of it was blamed on the quality of the air, on illnesses and tiredness, and Jaehyun kept his secret well hidden from the others. Truthfully, he was unsure of what the company would do to him if they ever found out he was sick, sick in a way that required surgery to remove the feelings, or a romantic relationship, which was forbidden enough for an idol, let alone between two men.

And Jaehyun himself doubted these budding feelings in his chest sometimes, in quiet moments when he found himself coughing when he spent time with other members. Chittaphon, or rather, Ten, induced these feelings in Jaehyun too sometimes. He found himself coughing up flurries of purple when they danced together, when Ten smiled at him and spoke in mixtures of English, Korean, and Thai.

It wasn’t until he called his mother to tell her about the flowers nearly a year later that she scolded him for being so careless with it.

 _“You think the flowers only exist when you’re around that person?”_ She said, and Jaehyun, taken aback, could only let out a noise of confirmation in response. _“Yoonoh, do you not remember the girl who infected you with it? Those damn flowers plagued her every second of every day, whether or not you two were together.”_

After a moment of silence, Jaehyun taking bated breaths and calming himself, his mother spoke again.

_“You should get the surgery. We will pay for it if the company won’t, but you need to get it before it gets any worse.”_

“ _I won’t. I refuse.”_

 _“You refuse getting better for what?”_ Jaehyun could tell she was smoking another cigarette. _“For a stupid crush?”_

 _“He isn’t stupid.”_ Jaehyun replied defensively, blood running hot in his veins as he tensed when he realized what it was he had admitted to.

 _“He.... And you fell in love with a man.”_ His mother let out a long sigh of disappointment, Jaehyun biting his bottom lip and focusing his gaze on whatever he could find first. His impersonal white sheets beneath him, his clothes messily tossed in the general direction of his hamper, and a gift Doyoung had given to him only a few days before. _“You know there are only two ways to get rid of the petals. Either you have the surgery, or you get the other person to reciprocate your feelings, Yoonoh.”_

Jaehyun shivered at how cold his name sounded.

_“I refuse to watch my son die because of his worthless pride.”_

_“Worthless pride?”_ Jaehyun spat the words out like poison. _“It isn’t my pride, eomma. It isn’t pride at all!”_

 _“Only pride could make somebody think so stupidly.”_ His mother continued. _“You will die if you don’t get this surgery.”_

_“You don’t think he could ever love me back? Is that it?”_

His mother’s line fell silent. Jaehyun straightened up at the sound of the other members returning from dinner, his eyes widening as he let out a shaky breath.

_“I don’t want you to love like that.”_

_“Because he’s a man.”_

_“Because you’re both men and that’s just... not something you should be doing as an idol. If you let this illness fester inside of you, you will get sick, do you understand that? You won’t be able to perform in front of people. Is that what you want?”_

_“And if I weren’t an idol?”_ Jaehyun’s throat felt tight, constricted, but he didn’t cough up a flower petal. Instead he swallowed thickly against a ball building in his chest, willed himself not to cry, even though his mother could already hear his breath hitching on his line. _“If this happened and I wasn’t an idol, eomma.... Would you support me?”_

_“I refuse to answer.”_

Jaehyun nodded, let out a weak hum of acknowledgement, shaky and unsure. He cut off his mother from speaking any more than she already had.

_“I have to go.”_

_“Please consider the surgery. You’ll be able to live normally.”_

_“Goodbye, eomma.”_

  
  
  
  


Doyoung knocked on Jaehyun’s door, waited for him behind it with a styrofoam box in hand as Jaehyun opened the door and ran his fingers through his hair.

“For you.” Doyoung lifted the box. “It’s spicy pork, and there’s some rice in there, and... uhm, I got you some green tea ice cream too.” Doyoung jutted his thumb towards the kitchen. “It’s in the fridge, so you can have some whenever you want.”

“Ah hyung, you didn’t have to do this!” Jaehyun exclaimed excitedly. “Share it with me, please?”

“Oh, I already ate a lot at dinner. I just ordered this for you because you didn’t go out with us.” Doyoung rubbed the back of his neck when Jaehyun took the box in his hands. “You said you like spicy pork, right?”

“Mm, I do! Though I would’ve liked anything you bought for me, hyung.”

Doyoung flushed visibly, a timid smile appearing on his face when he heard the proclamation from Jaehyun.

“But I refuse to eat unless you’re eating with me.” Jaehyun beamed when Doyoung became a stuttering, embarrassed mess of words and protests. A part of Jaehyun’s heart fluttered at the sight of Doyoung’s adorable expression, at how easily he nodded and gestured to the kitchen. “Here, you take the food, I just have to go to the bathroom first and wash my hands. Don’t eat it all!”

Jaehyun walked to the bathroom as calmly as he possibly could, eyes glued to the ground, one foot in front of the other he reminded himself, just keep walking, until he finally made it inside, slammed the door shut behind him, and collapsed to his hands and knees. The pains of blossoming flowers and thorns pricking at his insides was almost too much to bear in front of Doyoung. Almost.

A cough escaped him, raspy and loud as he rushed to turn the faucet on to distract the others from the sound of the dry heaves escaping his body. Then he crawled towards the toilet, desperately searching for the toilet seat before another heave escaped him, and then, just like that, a pile of petals left his throat. For a moment while they escaped his lips, Jaehyun panicked and grabbed at his throat, searching for air. He found respite a second later, when a pile of vividly colored petals appeared in front of his watery eyes.

No longer were there purple petals, not lavender or lilac or violet in shade, but yellow. Yellow, with red tips, and orange, and peach, and one singular pale pink petal sitting in the pile. Another heave left him, another yellow petal, and a peach one sat on his tongue as he peeled it off and threw it in the pile.

Purple was easy to undo, but these were no longer purple. They were colorful, vivid, they were colors he could no longer _reverse_ on his own. A wave of nausea hit him, and he swept the petals to the floor before lifting the toilet seat and throwing up nothing but yellowish bile.

Exactly one year and three days after Jaehyun coughed up his first purple petal, he threw up a mess of sunset colored flower petals.

One year and three days of hiding his illness, all gone in a second when the bathroom door swung open. Jaehyun realized he forgot to lock it behind him when he rushed in, too late to hide his mess of petals and spit as he rested his head on the toilet. The door shut, and then a quiet sigh came from above him. Jaehyun looked up to find Ten standing near the door.

“Oh, Jaehyun.” He began softly. Jaehyun let his eyes flutter shut, pressed his forehead to the cool porcelain of the toilet and shook his head.

“Don’t touch them.” He said weakly. “You’ll....”

“Get infected?” Ten finished his thought for him. Jaehyun wanted to look surprised at his words, stunned that he knew, but Ten beat him to it. “It’s all right. Let’s get this cleaned up. C’mon.”

  
  
  
  


The following morning, Ten woke Jaehyun up early for “practice”, something Jaehyun could see right through when Ten gave him one of those smiles, those pathetic, transparent smiles that said, _“I wish I could do something for you.”_ Jaehyun followed Ten to the practice rooms after changing into a pair of sweats and an old white t-shirt. Even through his shoes and socks, the floor of the practice room was freezing and radiated a chill that spread through his bones (or maybe it was his lingering anxiety at what had happened yesterday that made his blood run cold, Jaehyun couldn’t really tell).

But Ten didn’t act differently in the slightest, other than waking Jaehyun up so early to practice. He didn’t ask for an explanation about the flower petals or why Jaehyun looked so panicked when Ten touched them yesterday. He didn’t ask why it was so important for Jaehyun to sit and eat dinner with Doyoung after throwing up in the bathroom. Ten hardly even batted a lash when Jaehyun stifled a cough behind his hands as Ten connected his phone to the speakers of the practice room.

“We’re gonna stretch first, okay?” Ten said, and although there was a lilt in his inflection at the end of his sentence, it was more of a prompt for Jaehyun rather than a question. Jaehyun sat down nevertheless, stretched his legs out in front of him in the same fashion as Ten while reaching his hands to his toes. This kind of stretching was child’s play at this point, after a year of training with the others whenever they practiced in this same room. Ten sat opposite of Jaehyun, reached his arms out towards him and laced their fingers together. Ten tugged hard on him, jerking his body forward as he bent and stretched forward.

Ten took a deep breath in, Jaehyun struggling to catch his own before Ten loosened his grip and let Jaehyun fall back.

“Now you pull on me.” Ten ordered. Jaehyun nodded, took his hands and repeated the same action. Ten was much more flexible than Jaehyun was, because Ten was always dedicated to spending most (if not all) of his time dancing. Sometimes he even skipped meals to focus on dancing, because he always thought he could be better, do more, make his moves cleaner.

(A lot of these “skipped” meals were never _actually_ skipped though, because Johnny would save Ten a plate of food, despite the other’s protests.)

“When did you get it?” Ten asked suddenly. Jaehyun, focused for the time being, actually had no idea what Ten was talking about. Ten noticed the furrow of Jaehyun’s brows, and quickly corrected himself. “The Hanahaki disease, I mean.”

“O-oh.”

 _God_ , hearing the name of it made it exponentially more real than it had been before, Jaehyun thought while acid pooled in the back of his throat and threatened to spill over at any second. His family, upon finding out its name, avoided it completely, treated it taboo and never mentioned the possibility of the disease being triggered at any point during Jaehyun’s life. After all, love was a serious thing. Jaehyun had crushes on people before, but apparently that wasn’t enough for the disease to come into play. No, only when he looked into Doyoung’s rounded and warm eyes did he realize that crushes were _nothing_ compared to the blooming of flowers in his chest.

“Uhm... I was pretty young.” Jaehyun squinted his eyes in deep thought. “Around fifth grade, I think.”

“That’s not too bad.” Ten commented. Jaehyun narrowed his gaze towards Ten and nearly grimaced at his words.

“Not too bad?” He repeated the words with a tone so spiteful, Ten quickly pulled back and put his hands up defensively in front of him.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Ten corrected, clearly nervous and anxious as he searched for the right words. “Really, I didn’t, I promise. I only meant that you got it from somebody else, so you had some time of your life where you _didn’t_ have it.”

“Yeah.” Jaehyun drew his words out. “So?”

“What was it like?” Ten asked. “Not having the disease?”

“It’s how you feel right now.” Jaehyun said. Ten’s expression fell, lips downturned with a frown before his gaze faltered, eyes desperately trying to convey the confusion Ten felt at Jaehyun’s harsh words.

And then it hit Jaehyun like a 2x4 to the back of his head: Ten had touched his flowers yesterday, said it was fine when Jaehyun told him _not_ to touch them because he’d get infected and sick and go through the same stuff, Ten said it was _fine—_

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Jaehyun said, and Ten shook his head.

“It’s okay.”

“No, I can’t believe I— I didn’t mean to—” Jaehyun scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s seriously okay. I didn’t expect you to remember after what happened yesterday.”

Jaehyun bit his bottom lip. Guilt still panged in his chest at how inconsiderate he had been to Ten, but he found himself speaking again.

“How long have you had it?”

“Since birth.” Ten said. Jaehyun’s jaw dropped.

“How?” Jaehyun said softly, almost too quiet for Ten to hear. Ten let a smile tug at the corners of his lips, his smile misplaced considering what they were talking about, but not unwelcome.

“My mother said flowers were in the air the day I was born.” Ten shrugged. “One floated in through the hospital window, landed on my forehead, and that one must’ve been it. The killing petal, so to speak.”

“That’s _impossible_.” Jaehyun said. Ten sputtered out a laugh, smile wide on his face as he nodded.

“I know. But really, there was never a moment where we could pinpoint when it happened. I don’t remember a time in my life where I touched another person’s petals, so we assume I’ve had it since birth. Maybe my mom contracted it somehow. Considering the amount of flowers in Thailand, it’s not unlikely.”

“So, wait... how do you know you have it, then?” Jaehyun furrowed his brows.

“Oh, I was sick from it before.”

Jaehyun sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and looked back up at Ten.

“Okay, just tell me all of it at once so we can stop keep playing 20 questions like this.”

Ten giggled. “Yeah, all right. Uhm, so my family is pretty sure I’ve had it since birth somehow. Or maybe when I was young I touched someone’s petal? It was dormant for most of my life, but right before I went to the SM global audition, there was this... _person_ ,” Ten said the word carefully, so Jaehyun smiled, “and they were really nice to me, and I just... accidentally fell in love.”

“You can say it was a guy.” Jaehyun chimed in, Ten flushed as he nodded. “Seriously, I’m not going to judge. If it’s any consolation, mine is too. A guy, I mean.”

“Really?” Ten hummed. “Can I ask who?”

“You can ask, I’m not gonna answer.”

“Damn. Well, uh, so this guy... obviously he didn’t like me back. And I went to the global audition. When they casted me, I was so excited, and at the same time, really heartbroken? The flowers got really bad around that time. I missed almost a week of school because every time I even thought of leaving, I was throwing up petals.”

“What color were your petals?”

Ten pursed his lips, tapping his fingers against the wood floor of the practice room while his music played softly in the background.

“All kinds of colors. I know people say they see colors in a certain order, but... mine were just a mess.” Ten shrugged. “At first, I really did only see yellow. But then there was yellow and red, yellow and orange, peach and pink. I even had a few white petals.” Ten said the last part with something almost like confidence in his voice, as if he were bragging about the fact that he had lethal white petals in his mixture of colors. Still, Jaehyun let his jaw drop and eyes widen at that fact. “The night before I left for my flight, the only color I saw was blue.”

“Blue petals?” Jaehyun said suspiciously.

“Yeah. If you look up color meanings, blue means the unattainable, or the impossible. I think, maybe the disease was in retrograde after that.”

 _Blue is such a nice color, though_ , Jaehyun thought while worrying his bottom lip.

“So I never had the surgery, because it went away once I came here.” Ten fussed over his hair, shoved his bangs away from his face before he gave up and shrugged. “But I know a way to control it now. People make it sound like when you have Hanahaki disease that there’s only two outs to the situation, but there’s really three. If you can stop the disease early enough, fall out of love with the other person, you really can control it.” Ten leaned forward, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. “After I came to Seoul, I remember thinking a lot about how that guy I liked wasn’t all that great after all.”

“You fell out of love by running away from it.” Jaehyun said. Ten moved his head from side-to-side, as if knocking the thoughts in his head around.

“In a way, I guess I did. But it worked.” Ten tossed his hands up at his sides. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah.” Jaehyun said, lips quirked with a half-smile before he shook his head. “I don’t think it’s so easy for me.”

“Oh, sure it is.” Ten waved his hand.

“The first color I saw was purple.” Jaehyun said. Ten raised a brow. “It’s used for enchantment. Like, love at first sight?”

“Oh. Like... immediate love at first sight?”

“Yeah. But it lasted for a really long time, like a year.” Jaehyun left out the three days, because Ten might think he was weird or compulsive over that stuff. “When you caught me yesterday, that was the first time they had ever been different.”

Ten tapped his chin with his fingers as if in deep thought, snapped his fingers and sat up straight.

“All right, we’re gonna try something. First, you have to tell me who it is.”

“What?” Jaehyun jerked himself back as if Ten had hit him with acid to the face.

“It’s really important, just tell me!” Ten ordered, and out of anxiety, Jaehyun nodded.

“It’s Doyoung.” He said, eyes widening as he slapped his hands over his mouth.

“Oooh, Jaehyun~” Ten sang, Jaehyun kicking him and falling over on his side.

“Shut up! Why did you need to know, anyways?”

“Just ‘cause I'm nosy.” Ten shrugged, and laughed when Jaehyun kicked him again. “But also because we should try something. Like, let’s talk about all the bad stuff about Doyoung. C’mon, this should be easy, we’ve only known each other for, like, a year, it’s not like there’s a lot of attachment.”

“I don’t wanna say bad stuff about Doyoung.” Jaehyun replied almost childishly.

“Too bad! C’mon, sit up. That’s it. All right, now let’s talk about him. I’ll start.” Ten flickered his eyes back and forth from the wall to the floor, to Jaehyun, and then he snapped his fingers. “He has a face like a rabbit.”

Jaehyun sighed and rolled his eyes. “That’s _adorable_.”

“You’re supposed to think of something equally as mean!” Ten objected. “Focus, seriously. He has a face like a rabbit, and then you say?”

Jaehyun furrowed his brows, looking from the mirror behind Ten to his own reflection. “...rabbits are so cute though....”

“Jaehyun!”

  
  
  
  


What felt like hours had passed since they had woken up and moved to the practice room. Jaehyun laid on the floor, not caring if it was dirty or clean, as he stared at the ceiling and huffed. Ten had tried so many times to get Jaehyun to say negative things about Doyoung, but Jaehyun defended Doyoung’s actions, and if there was no defense for them, Jaehyun forgave him for it. Ten had tried _everything_ , even making up things he thought about Doyoung ( _“And his smiles are way too gummy.” “You shut your mouth, Chittaphon, his smile is fine!”_ ) so he was at a loss for words now.

“All right. Maybe falling out of love is harder than I thought.” Ten admitted. “You could’ve been more helpful though! Did you really have to shoot down everything I said?”

“Uh, yes.” Jaehyun glanced at Ten beside him. “Some of those things were just plain mean, Ten. Do you really feel that way?”

“No! I was just grasping at straws trying to make him seem undesirable.”

“I could tell when you said his voice was too easy to harmonize with, as if that’s ever a problem.” Jaehyun pouted. “Even _you_ can’t find stuff wrong with him.”

Ten stared up at the ceiling, eyes searching for a solution in the texture of the wood and paint above them before he heard footsteps echoing down the hallway. Both he and Jaehyun expectantly turned their gazes to the half-open door, expecting some staff members to yell at them for lying around, or other trainees coming down for practice, but instead found Johnny walking down with a plate covered in plastic wrap. His eyes were glued to the floor until he stepped in, then stuttered at the sight of Jaehyun and Ten on the ground.

“Oh, Jaehyun, I didn’t think you’d be here too.” Johnny took a step back. “Should I come back later?”

“No!” Ten shouted, pushing himself off of the floor and rushing towards Johnny with the widest grin on his face. “What’s for breakfast?”

“You really need to stop skipping, Ten. Seriously, the other trainees are giving me funny looks whenever I steal extra food. Pretty sure they think I’m hoarding it.” Johnny pouted for a half a second before he peeled the plastic wrap away. “It’s just waffles and some fruit. I didn’t put syrup on there, I know you don’t like it, so... Jaehyun, do you want me to get you some?”

“No, that’s okay.” Jaehyun grinned.

“Ten never eats breakfast ever.” Johnny said with a scolding tone, but Ten hardly looked affected as he picked a strawberry off of the plate and popped it into his mouth. “If I had known you were here, I would’ve brought you some instead. Maybe _then_ Ten would stop skipping breakfast.”

“But why would I go eat breakfast when I can get it delivered to me right here?” Ten grabbed a piece of melon and bit into it, juice trickling down his chin as Johnny mindlessly wiped it away with his thumb. “Thanks.”

Johnny hummed in acknowledgment, let Ten take the plate from his hands before he took a deep breath in and stretched his arms over his head. Jaehyun always forgot how ridiculously tall Johnny was, but lying on the floor like this made it painfully obvious. Jaehyun watched as Ten looked up at Johnny, lifted a piece of fruit to his lips and fed it to him, a timid smile unlike any other Jaehyun had ever seen on Ten’s face as he looked back down and grabbed one of the waffles.

“I already ate, genius.” Johnny flicked Ten in the forehead, to which Ten grumbled and rubbed at the spot. “We have dance practice in a couple of hours. Taeyong said it while we were eating.”

“Who died and made him boss?” Ten said. Johnny shrugged.

“I mean... he’s kinda the leader.” Johnny snorted with laughter, and Ten giggled with him. “Kinda his job to be the boss.”

“I didn’t agree to that.” Ten joked. “I’d rather have you as the leader anyways, you’ve been here the longest!” Johnny smiled, tried to hide the apparent flush on his cheeks by staring at his shoes. Ten pinched his cheek. “Cute.”

“You’re embarrassing.” Johnny playfully swatted Ten’s hand away from him. “I gotta go back.”

“Aw, why?”

“Hansol said he could beat me in Mario Kart, and you know I take full pride in my Mario Kart skills. Nobody can beat me as baby Daisy. _Nobody_.” Johnny grinned when Ten rolled his eyes at the childish sentence. “I can’t just let him knock on me like that, man.”

“Mmhm, I know.” Ten said. “Go protect your Mario Kart throne, loser. Thanks for breakfast... again.”

“Yeah, _again_.” Johnny said, pushing Ten’s shoulder playfully. “Seriously, stop skipping breakfast. You’re skinny enough as it is, tiny Ten.”

“I’m not tiny!”

“Besides, as much as I don’t mind bringing you food, I do like eating breakfast _with_ you sometimes.” Johnny teased as Ten pouted and flushed brighter. “Just a thought.”

Ten mimicked Johnny in a high pitched voice, the two joking around as Johnny jabbed at Ten’s side, and laughing even harder when Ten nearly dropped the plate of waffles and fruit on the floor of the practice room. Jaehyun watched the two fall into a comfortable rhythm of goofing around before Ten waved at Johnny and let him leave without bothering him again.

And there was something in Ten’s expression, reminiscent of the girl Jaehyun had known so many years ago, when she pulled flower petals from her pocket and gave them to him on the playground.

Something reminiscent, something fading, something...

“Do you like Johnny-hyung?” Jaehyun asked. Ten flinched at his question, narrowed his eyes towards Jaehyun and shook his head almost too hastily.

“No.” He said, force behind his single denial of it before he bit into another waffle and sat down by his phone.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume. I just....” Jaehyun let his sentence trail off when he noticed the way Ten’s eyes flickered towards him with a warning.

Ah. That was it.

“Sorry.” Jaehyun repeated, sat up from the floor and ran his fingers through his messy hair.

“It’s fine.” Ten mumbled, but the tone of voice he used said it most definitely wasn’t. So Jaehyun stood up, apologized once more with a slight bow, and left. He followed the same path Johnny did to get back to the dorms, opened the door to find the others crowded around the couch while Johnny and Hansol started up the console and sat down with grins on their faces. None of them bothered to look back at Jaehyun when he walked in.

Well, none of them but Doyoung. His heart wouldn’t be able to take much more of this, Jaehyun thought before he smiled at his friend, waved and started back to towards his room. He was stopped by Doyoung’s hand on his shoulder, smile wide on his face as Jaehyun shivered under his touch.

“Do you want to go out for ice cream after dance practice? There’s a really good place around here, and they’re having a special on couples ice cream, so I thought we could go together.”

“Couples... ice cream?” Jaehyun said. Doyoung nodded.

“Yeah!”

“As in dating couples?”

“Well, yeah, but we can just pretend and get some on the down low.” Doyoung’s expression faltered. “Uh, I mean, unless you’re uncomfortable with that. I understand if you are, I wasn’t even thinking of that kind of thing.”

“It wasn’t that.” Jaehyun smiled. “Just cute that you picked me out of everyone! Do you have a crush on me, hyung?” Jaehyun pinched Doyoung’s cheek, watched as the older pouted, but made no move to push his hand away, but grumbled a soft, “no,” in response to Jaehyun’s teasing. Jaehyun dropped his hand by his side, savoring the softness of Doyoung’s skin under his fingertips for a second longer than he should have. The roses bustled in his chest and warned him as he strained to breathe. “Only kidding. Are we going to share this ice cream?”

“You big flirt, it’s just a couples special.” Doyoung pinched Jaehyun’s shoulder, to which Jaehyun giggled and shoved him lightly. “Just this one time, just to get some ice cream.”

Jaehyun smiled, felt his cheeks warm up despite Doyoung’s reminders that it _wasn’t_ an actual couples thing. Maybe this was as close as he could get, Jaehyun thought, this was the best he could get with Doyoung.

And— well, he couldn’t say he minded.

  
  
  
  


**2015**

Jaehyun grew closer with Ten than he did with most of the other trainees, despite the fact that he got along well with most everybody. He told himself it was because of Ten’s personality, because of how easily they could joke around and loved to spend time together, but part of him knew he’d have to thank the disease for bringing them together in the first place, demented as it seemed.

Despite their closeness, Jaehyun never broached the subject of Johnny with Ten again. The countless encounters he’d had with Ten and Johnny brought up curious suspicions and even curiouser thoughts, but Jaehyun kept them all to himself, hidden amongst the flower petals he coughed out on a daily basis.

Thankfully the petals were never as bad as the day Ten caught him, only five or six a day at most, and the colors alternated between yellow and orange, sometimes peach, but never pink or yellow with red tips after that day. And Jaehyun thought that he had found a comfortable balance, juggling his illness with practice and recording, avoiding Doyoung when he felt thorns poking at the back of his throat with the threat of an onslaught of petals.

The worst part of it all, Jaehyun thought, was acknowledging the dying conversations Jaehyun had to force himself to sit through with his mother. He couldn’t count on both hands how many times he had excused himself from the dorms to stand outside and talk to her, spoke in hushed tones and begged her to stop talking about the surgery while holding back tears. How many times had he lied to her, told her that the petals had stopped, only to be shot down when she heard the slightest catch in the cadence of his voice?

That day she called, the one and only time he refused to pick up the phone while he dry heaved and peeled petals from the back of his tongue, he knew there was something wrong when the message she left him was more than 20 seconds long.

At the sound of her voice, he could imagine her sitting at their dinner table, cigarette in between her fingers while puffing out a long breath of smoke and letting the ash fall into the glass ashtray Jaehyun broke once (but put back together with superglue).

_“I know you’ve been lying to me about the petals, Jaehyun. And I know you’re avoiding my calls. Your father agrees with me, that you should get the surgery and rid yourself of these feelings. Don’t worry about marriage, Yoonoh, worry about your health. You can always get married to a woman who had the surgery as well. You and your wife will be able to have children together, lead a normal life. Please answer the phone next time I call.... If you don’t, I’ll have to contact the company and alert them of what’s going on. Please don’t act on these meaningless feelings. We miss you, eat and sleep well, my son.”_

Jaehyun pretended not to notice her change of inflection on the words, “woman,” and, “wife.”

Jaehyun deleted the voicemail just before he went out with Doyoung to see a movie together.

Jaehyun’s mother didn’t call again.

  
  
  


**2016**

The night before they left for Thailand for the rookie shows, Jaehyun had a pounding headache. His vision was bleary, stomach churning, thorns constricting around his insides like a snake with its prey. He took a long, raspy breath in, careful not to be too loud when he coughed into his hand and held up a single pink flower petal.

Already on the edge of his bed, Jaehyun crawled off, tried to get to his feet and rush to the door, but found his knees gave out underneath him right as he grabbed at the door and swung it open.

Jaehyun crawled out across the hall, hoping, praying that nobody would see him as a heave quickly left his body. He pressed his forehead to the ground, tears slipping down his cheeks as another heave left him. This time, the taste of iron flooded his mouth bitterly, and he heaved again to find more petals worming their way past his lips. At some point while lying on the floor, somebody had come up beside him, pressed a comforting hand to the small of his back and nervously spoke to another person. The words sounded foreign on his ears as he heaved one last time, a mixture of mucus and flower petals and blood escaping him as he gasped for breath. Even worse than last time, Jaehyun was dizzy from the deprivation of air to his lungs.

“Don’t touch them.” Jaehyun warned. “Don’t touch the flower petals.”

“Tell us what we should do.” Ah, it was Taeyong. Jaehyun could hear the concern in his voice, tone dripping with fear as Jaehyun tried to sit up from his spot on the floor. Mark nervously stepped away at the sight of blood and petals.

“Ten.... Get Ten. Don’t let the others see this. Please.” Jaehyun pleaded, rolled over on his side and burst into tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Mark.” Taeyong spoke quickly. “Go get Ten from his room. Hurry!”

  
  
  
  


Taeyong paced Jaehyun’s and Mark’s shared room, Mark curled up on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest as he eyed Jaehyun carefully. It had been a half hour since Jaehyun had passed out in the hallway in the mess of blood and petals.

Mark had woken up Ten out of his sleep, careful not to rouse Hansol as they rushed out. Ten cleaned up the petals, had even parted Jaehyun’s lips to peel another pink one off of his tongue before carrying the pile into the bathroom and flushing them away. After wiping up the blood that had pooled underneath the flowers, Ten instructed Taeyong and Mark to carry him to bed.

The sight of Jaehyun in a small heap on his bed sent Taeyong into an angered frenzy. Ten had cleaned the mess up out in the hall, and walked in with a cold compress. He avoided eye contact with Taeyong and Mark, sat down beside Jaehyun, and pressed the compress to his forehead. Jaehyun hardly budged in his sleep, just flinched at the contact of the towel and then soundly passed out again.

“Ten.” Taeyong said, Ten glancing over his shoulder before looking back at Jaehyun. Taeyong let out a huff of annoyance. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or not?!”

“I can’t.” Ten replied almost immediately.

“Why the hell was he throwing up flower petals?” Taeyong gestured towards the door, eyebrows furrowed as he spoke louder, despite Ten’s quiet reminder to stay silent not only for Jaehyun, but for the other members. “Why couldn’t we touch the petals? Why did he say that before he passed out?”

“Hyung, you can keep asking, but I’m not going to answer.” Ten snapped back, turning to face Taeyong this time.

“Ten, we have to leave in the morning for the airport. You, me, Jaehyun, Johnny and Doyoung. How the hell are we supposed to leave when Jaehyun is like this?”

“Look,” Ten began, taking a deep breath in and standing up, “I’m not going to pretend Jaehyun is okay. As a matter of fact, what just happened was _really_ , really bad. But it isn’t my place to tell you what’s going on, s-so... ask Jaehyun or something.”

Mark shifted uneasily on his bed, face hidden behind his knees as he cleared his throat. Taeyong and Ten both looked at him, as if completely forgetting he was sitting there. Mark’s expression softened, eyes glazed over as he tried to blink away his tears. When he failed to blink them back, he rubbed his eyes with the flat part of his palm and sniffled.

“He’s going to be okay, right?” Mark said. Taeyong looked expectantly at Ten, who bit his bottom lip in hesitation. What kind of answer could he give them? The disease accelerated differently depending on the person, so the time always varied between shifts in color. Ten really thought Jaehyun had his under control by now, had somehow controlled the flowers enough so they wouldn’t suffocate him in the same way that they just had.

Ten parted his lips to speak, but just as he thought of another weak excuse, Jaehyun coughed and sputtered out a loud gasp from beside them. He sat up in a frantic rush, grabbing at his chest and tearing at his shirt as if it was keeping him from breathing. Ten immediately sat down beside Jaehyun, hands grasping at Jaehyun’s and squeezing at them.

“It’s okay.” Ten said with a tone much like Jaehyun expected to hear from his mother, one she had probably used for him when he came down with the flu when he was younger. Jaehyun allowed himself to break down into tears once he caught his breath. His shoulders trembled, shook from fear. A horrified feeling settled in his chest at the sight of Taeyong and Mark in the room, the hesitant and scared looks in their eyes only reaffirming Jaehyun’s fear that they knew. He only vaguely remembered telling them not to touch the petals. Panic washed over his senses as they finally met his gaze.

“Did y-you touch the petals?” Jaehyun shivered. Taeyong shook his head, and Mark let out a soft, “no,” before he looked away. Jaehyun’s heart sunk at the sight of Mark not daring to look at him. _He must think I’m a freak,_ Jaehyun thought before he let out a shaky breath.

“I cleaned it up.” Ten reassured Jaehyun, brushed a tear from his cheek. He frowned when their eyes met, shook his head and let his expression soften. “You need to tell them what it was.”

“N-no, hyung, I can’t.” Jaehyun said.

“Jaehyun.” Ten said seriously. “I know it’s hard, okay? I get it, but we can’t just tell them it’s not a problem. Not when it’s gotten this bad.” Ten averted his gaze from Jaehyun and looked down at the floor instead. “You didn’t even tell _me_ it was this bad.”

“It _wasn’t_.” Jaehyun sputtered nervously. “It never was, they were only yellow and orange, please you have to believe me.”

Ten nodded slowly, knowing he had no room to be offended that Jaehyun hadn’t told him, and it made sense that once the petals changed colors, his body would react horribly until it was used to it once more. He’d had a similar reaction when the flowers shifted from purple to yellow and orange.

This time, though, Jaehyun had passed out, had thrown up blood with his petals, and felt feverish and warm. His hand clenched and unclenched around the material of his shirt, and Ten knew it was because he hadn’t been able to breathe while he was throwing up the flower petals.

They kept silent, Ten only giving Jaehyun a meek, half-smile and moving to sit beside him. Taeyong was angry, visibly so, with his eyebrows knitted together and jaw tensed. Still, Ten and Jaehyun didn’t speak. Only when Jaehyun had some semblance of composure did he dare to look Taeyong in the eye and let out a deep breath.

“It’s... called Hanahaki disease.” Jaehyun said. Taeyong’s expression softened, and Mark glanced between Taeyong and Jaehyun for an explanation. “It’s a disease, er, that lies dormant until triggered by... one-sided love.” Jaehyun rubbed his forehead when he realized just how stupid he felt trying to explain this, how idiotic the premise of a disease coming from a feeling as easy as _love_ sounded, but he continued when Ten squeezed his hand reassuringly. “Not everybody has it. Just people who have touched the petals, which is why I told you two not to touch them. And I’m so, so, so sorry you saw it. I never thought— I thought I’d make it into the bathroom in time, I just....”

Taeyong interrupted Jaehyun’s search for words. “One-sided love? As in, unrequited love?”

“Yeah.... Ten-hyung, I don’t know how to explain it.” Jaehyun said desperately. Ten shook his head.

“You’re doing a good job so far. Go on.”

Jaehyun let his eyes close, as if the answers were somehow imprinted on the inside of his eyelids, but all he found was darkness, stifling darkness, so he let them flutter open and swallowed hard against the ball in his throat. “People with H— _the disease_ throw up and cough out flower petals, uhm, of varying colors. But there’s always an escalation in colors, so it gets worse depending on the color being coughed out.”

“And how bad is pink?” Taeyong said. Jaehyun tensed.

“Pretty... pretty bad.” Jaehyun admitted sheepishly.

“It’s a disease?” Mark finally chimed in from the bed. “If it’s a disease, then there must be a cure for it. There’s always a cure for diseases.”

Taeyong darted his gaze back to Ten and Jaehyun. Obviously too distraught to speak again, Ten spoke up for Jaehyun instead.

“There’s three ways for someone to recover from the disease. The love can be reciprocated and the petals will gradually disappear, or the diagnosed can fall out of love, or....”

Jaehyun buried his face in his hands as Ten rubbed his back reassuringly.

“ _Or?”_ Taeyong rushed, and Ten frowned.

“There’s a surgery to remove the flowers from the chest. That’s where they bloom. But the surgery removes all of those kinds of feelings. Love, I mean. If Jaehyun got the surgery, he’d never be able to love again.” Ten paused and stuttered over his words. “And sometimes, depending on how severe the disease affects someone, the surgery could remove _all_ feelings from somebody. It’s never a guarantee that they’ll _only_ lose love.”

“So? Who cares about all that? Jaehyun, you have to get the surgery before it gets any worse.”

“I refuse.” Jaehyun said easily.

“And what happens if the flowers get worse?” Taeyong directed his question towards Ten, who shrunk and looked at Jaehyun, as if asking for permission. Jaehyun nodded.

“Well... once the petals reach red or white, they start blooming more and more in the lungs. Eventually, the blooming flowers and petals will be so abundant that the diagnosed will suffocate.” Ten shuddered out the last few words, as if he could feel his own throat tightening at the thought of dying from his own flowers.

The silence that followed their conversation was stifling. Jaehyun wanted nothing more than to run out of the room, go somewhere, _anywhere_ , maybe to that place Doyoung mentioned was having a couple’s special while they were going to be in Thailand, and he was so overwhelmed by his overactive thoughts that he didn't feel Mark’s arms around his shoulders, holding onto him as tightly as he possibly could, as if Jaehyun would disappear if he didn’t.

And Mark couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He sat with his arms around Jaehyun, squeezing, holding, gripping to his shirt and crying into his shoulder. Taeyong, out of disgust or frustration, stormed out of the room without another word. Ten squeezed Jaehyun’s hand again. But even with the two of them there, hugging him, making sure he knew he was loved, Jaehyun couldn’t ignore the emptiness in his chest. All he wanted to do was curl up and sleep and dream for a while.

(If Doyoung happened to be in some of those dreams— and by some, he really meant all of his dreams— then so be it.)

  
  
  
  


Thailand was disorienting and odd and new for all of them. Well, all of them but Ten, who was used to the flowers, used to the green grass and beautiful water, boats and students walking around, joking, smiling. He put up with their outbursts, their comments on how gorgeous the country was, and it really _was_ breathtaking (and maybe Ten felt little gushes of confidence whenever they complimented his home country, but that was besides the point).

Jaehyun did his best to tuck away the petals he coughed out. The crew and staff pointed out his darkened features, figured he didn’t have enough makeup on and touched it up before they commented that he was coughing an awful lot. He played it off as a mild cold from the flight. However, his words soured in his throat when Taeyong threw him a sideways glance, or whenever they made eye contact for longer than a few seconds.

Taeyong always had a sort of unreadable face. From the first time Jaehyun met him, he couldn’t tell if Taeyong actually liked him, or if Taeyong was really just bearing Jaehyun because he was obligated to. It wasn’t until a few months after joining the company when they were practicing together and Taeyong let it spill that he really enjoyed Jaehyun’s company that Jaehyun started to feel at ease with him.

So to say the least, the repetitive tense eye contact and awkward moments he and Taeyong shared made Jaehyun want to crawl into a hole and die.

But Jaehyun sucked it up, performed like his body wasn’t turning on him for being in love with Kim Doyoung, danced and sang, laughed and even joked around with Taeyong on stage, all for the fans. For a second, he felt a rush of pride in himself, for dealing with his illness without making any of the fans worry, without having to expose himself to the world. He deserved _something_ for that, at least.

And Doyoung? Oh, Doyoung gave _something_ to him, he thought happily. Doyoung gave it to him without complaint, gave him the best thing he could have given Jaehyun on that night.

After the rookies show was over and they all applauded each other excitedly, Doyoung threw his arms around Jaehyun, apologized for being gross and sweaty but said he wanted to hug him anyways, and Jaehyun had to refrain himself from saying he didn’t mind Doyoung this way. When Doyoung pulled back, his light pink lips brushed against Jaehyun’s cheeks, almost too close for it to be an accident as he grinned widely and pressed their foreheads together.

“You did such an amazing job, Jaehyunnie!”

Jaehyun’s cheeks went beet red, eyes unable to flicker away from Doyoung’s bright, wide-eyed gaze while excitement kept him smiling, so beautifully, so breathtaking and overwhelming. Mentally, he was kicking himself for thinking Doyoung meant any of this in any way other than platonically, but he could hope, he could dream.

The flowers bustled angrily, tried to warn Jaehyun of what would come from these thoughts, but for once, he wanted to indulge himself in these feelings, wanted to relish in Doyoung, _Doyoung, all of Doyoung_ , so he pulled Doyoung into his arms and buried his face in the crook of Doyoung’s neck. Doyoung laughed it off as pure skinship, even though they were off stage, and there was no reason to continue that sort of thing. Doyoung carded his fingers through Jaehyun’s hair, said something about how proud of Jaehyun he was, and all Jaehyun could think of in that moment was, _“I wouldn’t mind it if I died for you. I wouldn’t mind dying from my feelings for you, Kim Doyoung.”_

  
  
  


That night, Jaehyun returned back to their hotel rooms and vomited up thirteen pink petals. He pretended as if he hadn’t noticed a few speckles of cherry red at the edges of two of the petals, and flushed them away after coughing the last three out.

Jaehyun squeezed some toothpaste onto his toothbrush and popped it into his mouth while pushing his hair away from his face when he heard a knock on the hotel room door. The clock read nearly two in the morning. The only reason Jaehyun had woken up out of his dead sleep was because he couldn’t breathe when the petals started forming in the back of his throat, but who else could have been awake this late at night?

He rushed to the door without checking behind it, peeking through the slight crack to find Taeyong standing behind it. Adorned with dark sweatpants and a long t-shirt, he looked up at Jaehyun as soon as he swung the door open. Jaehyun pointed back towards Mark, who was asleep in bed (with Donghyuck tucked into his side, because he said sleeping in hotel rooms was hard unless he was with somebody he knew), as if that was a sign that they should keep quiet. Taeyong nodded.

“We need to talk. Alone.”

With his toothbrush still hanging out of his mouth, Jaehyun nearly stepped out of his hotel room, but Taeyong stifled a laugh and shook his head. “Finish brushing your teeth first. We can go outside to talk, okay?”

Jaehyun nodded and walked into the bathroom to finish brushing his teeth, maybe spending an extra minute or two out of apprehension and fear of what it was Taeyong wanted to talk about.

  
  
  
  


Taeyong had rolled the legs of his sweatpants up to his knees, swung them over the edge of the pool and swayed them forward and back in the cool water. Bugs buzzed loudly around them as Jaehyun settled beside him and did the same, holding his sweatpants in the crook of his knees as he dipped his legs into the pool. Taeyong looked at Jaehyun expectantly, as if Jaehyun was the one who called him out to speak to him, but sighed after a minute of silence.

“You already know what I want to talk about, right?” Taeyong said. Jaehyun nodded. “Could I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.” Jaehyun said softly.

“Is it Doyoung?”

Jaehyun’s shoulders rose in hesitation, voice caught in his throat as the water pooled around him rippled and rocked with Taeyong’s movements. Taeyong leaned forward and dipped his fingertips into the water.

“I knew it.” He said, and if Jaehyun didn’t know better, he could’ve sworn there was a longing, envious lilt in the cadence of his voice. Or maybe it was frustration. Jaehyun couldn’t quite tell. “I knew it today after the performance.”

“How?”

Taeyong pursed his lips and shrugged. “Just seeing you two together, how you act around him. It just fit together.” Taeyong looked back towards Jaehyun, their eyes meeting for the first time since Jaehyun had opened the door to his hotel room. “Why him?”

“I don’t know.” Jaehyun said, though it was only half of a lie. His heart knew why Doyoung. The flowers knew why Doyoung. Every fiber of his being knew why Doyoung, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Jaehyun knew his body was on the verge of another change, of threatening a new color at any moment now, and he had heard so many times before that red was the worst color to go through with Hanahaki disease. He wanted to avoid it for as long as possible, or at least until they went back to Seoul, where he could hide in the safe confines of his dorm room and not worry about coughing up a petal for the press to go crazy for.

“Does it get worse if you talk about him?” Taeyong asked. Jaehyun furrowed his brows.

“Hmm.... It kind of does.” Jaehyun said hesitantly. “But at the same time, my heart has never felt so light before in my life.”

Taeyong let that sit for a moment before nodding his head and speaking again. “And... the surgery?”

“What about it?”

“Are you going to get it?”

“I already told you I refuse it.” Jaehyun said hastily, then quickly apologized for the tone he used. Taeyong didn’t seem to mind, even though he should have been annoyed. He had every right to be pissed off at Jaehyun, he thought. Still, Taeyong spoke with a level of calmness Jaehyun had grown to expect from the older.

“What about your dreams?” Taeyong said. “Your hopes? Being an idol?”

“Being an idol doesn’t control my life.” Jaehyun said, following Taeyong’s gaze up to the sky to find the trees swaying back and forth with the wind around them. Even though they sat in a foreign country, surrounded by a language neither of them knew much about, Jaehyun couldn’t help but feel comforted by the same moon he looked at in Seoul, that he looked at in America when he was there, and would continue to look at every night before he went to bed, no matter where he was.

“Jaehyun.”

“Hm.”

“If you hadn’t been cast into SM, you never would have met Doyoung.” Taeyong said. Jaehyun felt small at his words.

“I know.” He mumbled.

“You would have never fallen in love with him.”

“I _know._ ”

“You wouldn’t be suffering the way you are now.”

“You don’t know that.” Jaehyun changed his response this time. “You don’t know that I wouldn’t be suffering the same. The disease doesn’t just pick any random person to make me sick over.” Jaehyun huffed and shook his head. “ _I_ fell in love with Kim Doyoung. This is _my_ fault.”

Taeyong had nothing to say, so he looked away from Jaehyun to gather his thoughts, trying desperately to find a way he could convince Jaehyun to take the surgery seriously, to just do it and rid himself of the pain of vomiting up petals every time he was reminded of how much he loved Doyoung. Jaehyun coughed into the palm of his hand, and Taeyong pretended not to notice the way Jaehyun promptly shoved his hand into the pocket of his sweats.

“If you won’t think of your own wellbeing, Jaehyun, at the very least consider the rest of us.” Taeyong mumbled. “Think of how everybody would feel if you died from this treatable disease. For what?” Taeyong’s eyes searched in the clear blue of the pool water. “Is it pride that’s keeping you from the surgery?”

“Why does everybody think my pride is all that matters in this?” Jaehyun said in annoyance. “Taeyong-hyung, have you ever been in love?”

Taeyong furrowed his brows, shook his head and looked at Jaehyun. The saddest, softest expression on Jaehyun’s face threw him off for a second, but only a second.

“Being in love, it’s indescribable.” Jaehyun said. Suddenly a tight constricting of thorns and vines around his lungs made Jaehyun yelp as he grabbed at his chest and took a long, deep breath in. Taeyong wanted to help, hands darted from his sides as if he could do anything else but sit and watch Jaehyun struggle to ward off a coughing fit.

“And Doyoung.... Doyoung is so... _loving_.” Jaehyun said with a voice full of longing. “He makes me happy, Taeyong-hyung. Has anybody ever made you so happy that you’d give anything for them?” Jaehyun relaxed as the thorns calmed. Then he twiddled his fingers in his lap as he swung his legs back and hit his heels against the rough pool wall. “Doyoung makes me so happy, and I hope I make him happy too. Maybe not in the way I want to make him happy, but as long as he’s smiling, I’m fine with giving myself in exchange for that. My pride has nothing to do with this.”

Taeyong wanted to snap at Jaehyun for pretending he was sacrificing himself for Doyoung’s wellbeing, felt the urge to mention that Jaehyun was most likely scared to tell Doyoung of his feelings, but Jaehyun beat him to it.

“Besides that, I think it’s manipulative to tell him I love him while I’m sick like this.” Jaehyun gestured vaguely at his chest. “Imagine being told somebody loves you, and if you don’t love them back, they’ll die.” Jaehyun shook his head. “I’d never do that to him. He deserves better than that.”

“Jaehyun....” Taeyong spoke with shock. Jaehyun looked at him, a knowing, but sad smile on the corners of his lips as he willed himself not to cry, though the tears came anyways.

“I’ll tell myself this until I die.”

Taeyong pulled Jaehyun into his arms, squeezed him tight and mumbled an apology against his shoulder. Taeyong felt tears even pricking at his own eyes, slipping down his cheeks as he took in a shaky breath and held onto him tighter. Jaehyun was used to it now— the hugging. Mark had started hugging him more than before, and Ten always hugged him before they went separate ways. Jaehyun didn’t understand why for the longest time, wondered if Ten had some ulterior motive by doing so, but figured it out only a few weeks afterwards. Ten hugged him so often, and for so long, because he was afraid when they went their separate ways, something would happen to Jaehyun, and they’d never see each other again. And Mark started acting that way too, and now Taeyong, and Jaehyun _knew_ he didn’t want to die, he selfishly didn’t want to die because of this, but didn’t mind it so much when he remembered Doyoung’s bright smile.

  
  
  
  


Summer nights in Seoul were one of the few things in life Jaehyun had never tried to describe with his own limited vocabulary, because the nights were always so different, varying between going out and partying with friends, hanging out at restaurants, or just staying home and relaxing. Jaehyun was doing the latter. He found himself in Doyoung’s room, lounging lazily on his bed while curling up in his blankets. Doyoung mentioned something about that being weird, but Jaehyun hardly paid him any mind, far too busy savoring the scent of Doyoung’s sweet cologne (which seemed too light and flowery to be cologne but maybe perfume?) and getting lost in the softness of his bed to care about how “weird” it was.

“Hey, Jaehyunnie?” Doyoung said, unknowingly making Jaehyun shiver at his soft voice as Jaehyun let out a hum of acknowledgment. “I, er, got you a present.”

“A present?” Jaehyun sat up almost immediately with Doyoung’s sheets around his shoulders. “Why?”

“Just because.” Doyoung replied with a hint of defense in the tone of his voice, clearly trying to put on a show that was failing horribly. He pulled a small red bag out from the drawer of his dresser, tissue paper sticking out with a curled bow tying the bag shut. Jaehyun took it carefully in hand before thanking Doyoung with a slight bow, as much as he could sitting on his bed. Doyoung plopped down beside him, pulled his legs onto the bed and crossed them underneath him.

Carefully, Jaehyun untied the ribbon from the bag, let the tissue paper pop out as he tugged at it and finally revealed a small white cloth around something small, something circular. As he curled his fingers around it, he found it was heavy, much heavier than he thought it was going to be considering the size of it. Doyoung stuttered over his words in embarrassment.

“One of my friends went to the states for vacation, and... I asked her to pick me up something from there, as a gift for you.” Doyoung explained sheepishly, Jaehyun finally pulling the smooth cloth away to find an intricately designed snowglobe in the palm of his hands. At the base of it read, _New York_ , but Doyoung spoke once more. “I know you didn’t live in New York, I know it was someplace else, but... well, that’s the only place she went, so I figured a gift like this is better than nothing. Is it okay?” Doyoung scratched his cheek nervously.

Jaehyun only half heard Doyoung’s echoey voice in the back of his mind, fingers trembling against the snowglobe and tightening around it, as if his fingers were strong enough to leave imprints on it, imprints that read _this is mine, this is mine and Doyoung gave it to me._

And then Jaehyun felt _it_ , the telltale sign of thorns around his heart, in his lungs, roses budding in the back of his throat, and _no,_ it couldn’t be happening so soon, his colors had only shifted a couple months before, they couldn’t be turning red already! Jaehyun turned his gaze to Doyoung, their eyes meeting as he let out something between a choked sob and a laugh, Doyoung furrowing his brows in response.

“Jaehyun? What’s wrong?”

“Doyoung-hyung,” he began, voice already strained as he felt petals tickling at the back of his throat, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Doyoung took the snowglobe from Jaehyun’s hands, set it down beside him and slid his hands over Jaehyun’s. Jaehyun felt the flowers pulse, heaves threatening to escape him as he shook his head.

“I can’t, I can’t— I’m so sorry, hyung, I’m—” Jaehyun heaved, pushing the sheets off of him hastily and sliding off of the bed, legs already weak with the pain shooting through his body. “Whatever happens, p-please don’t touch the petals.” Jaehyun spoke clearly, heart aching in his chest as he tried to push himself to his feet, only to fall onto his stomach once more. Doyoung dropped to his knees, tried to turn Jaehyun over, but failed when Jaehyun weakly pushed him away and shook his head. “Get Ten, tell him— tell him they’re red, tell him....”

“Jaehyun, w-what? Ten? You want me to go get Ten?”

“Please!” Jaehyun cried out, Doyoung rushing out of his room and down the hall, voice fading and far off, or maybe it was just Jaehyun’s pounding headache as he coughed, heaved, oxygen gradually cut off from his lungs as he desperately clawed at his throat to clear it. At a loss of breath, he stuck his fingers down his throat, felt the smooth petals under his fingers and eased a few out. His throat tightened, constricted, vision going blurry and gray as he felt the petals shift.

Jaehyun only half felt himself being manhandled, body rearranged and changed in position before another heave weakly left him, and then a mess of blood and petals fell past his lips. He sucked in air with a loud gasp, heart pounding in his chest wildly as he coughed again, another mouthful of petals, one after the other. His vision cleared up first, pulse still thrumming in his ears like a bass drum, and the first thing he saw was red. So much red, red petals, his blood, dripping past his lips in long strings of drool and mucus. The acid of his stomach bubbled, and he gagged, bile and petals mixing together as he threw up again. Faintly he heard himself begging, pleading for the pain to stop, tears dripping past his eyes as he clenched them shut.

And then his hearing came back all at once, the sound of voices rushing in all at once, _everybody’s_ voices: Doyoung, Ten, Johnny, Taeyong, Mark, Hansol, Donghyuck, and Jaehyun _hated_ himself for showing them this, for scaring them with this disgusting display, but couldn’t bring himself to stop. His body heaved, back arching again as another mouthful of petals. He caught a glimpse of red, and then white, and _fuck,_ white wasn’t supposed to be there yet, _white wasn’t supposed to be there!_

“Don’t touch them!” Jaehyun rasped, and Ten repeated the same thing, pushing Johnny and Hansol away when they tried to grab Jaehyun and lift him from the floor, carry him out of his mess of vomit and bile and flowers.

“He needs a hospital.” Ten said quickly. “Call an ambulance, tell them what's going on.” Ten ordered Johnny, but Johnny looked just as frustrated at Ten did.

“What _is_ going on?” Johnny replied, and Ten’s shoulders rose tensely, lips parting as he looked back at Jaehyun.

“Just call an ambulance. Now!”

  
  
  
  


Hospitals were the last place Doyoung liked to be, but he found he couldn’t leave when the doctors said Jaehyun was stable, nor when the nurses pleaded for him to go home and rest, that they were taking care of Jaehyun as best as they possibly could. He stayed by Jaehyun’s side, held his hand and squeezed it reassuringly, hoping, praying that Jaehyun could feel him even in the medicinally induced coma the doctors had put him in.

The sight of Jaehyun with a tube stuffed down his throat to keep him breathing made him anxious and panicky beyond all get out, but he gritted his teeth and tucked his fear away in the back of his mind, forced himself to remember that Jaehyun would do the same for him. The only time Doyoung ever had to look away from Jaehyun was when the nurses came in with gloves and bags labeled as toxic waste, and they picked flower petals from the breathing tube. He couldn’t bear to look then.

They had managed to take Jaehyun out of their dorms without revealing it was him who was sick, and thankfully, kept his disease quiet as well. To say the least, Lee Soo Man wasn’t happy, demanded that everybody Jaehyun had contact with be tested for the disease, and then raised concerns for Jaehyun’s vocal cords when he found out Jaehyun had to be intubated in order to stay alive.

Jaehyun’s family didn’t visit him.

Doyoung pressed his forehead to Jaehyun’s hand, squeezing his fingers and letting out a long, bated breath. There was so much he wanted to ask his friend. Why hadn’t Jaehyun told Doyoung about this disease, this Hanahaki thing which apparently had gotten so bad, it nearly killed him? Doyoung knew he didn’t have room to be upset or offended, but he couldn’t help the way his heart ached at the thought of Jaehyun suffering from this illness alone. He wasn’t sure what the illness entailed, none of the doctors had time to explain it, and the other members seemed to be just as in the dark as he was.

A quiet knock came from the hospital room door, Doyoung jumping and looking at the entryway to find Ten and Johnny standing there, Ten’s expression serious, and Johnny’s even worse. Ten could hardly spare a second glance towards Jaehyun, legs nearly giving out from underneath him as Johnny noticed, slipped an arm around his waist and held him upright.

None of them said anything, Doyoung nodding at Ten and then bringing his gaze back to Jaehyun. Ten and Johnny stepped in, sat on the side opposite of Doyoung. Johnny nudged Ten after a few minutes of silence, and Ten hesitantly moved forward in his seat, just on the edge as he cleared his throat and caught Doyoung’s attention again.

“I need to tell you something.” Ten said. Doyoung nodded. “About Jaehyun. About Hanahaki.”

  
  
  
  


On the fifth day in the hospital, Doyoung was awoken by the sound of gagging and heaving coming from Jaehyun. All too quickly, he sat up, ready to run and grab the nearest doctor, but nurses were already surrounding him, skillfully tugging the tube from his throat and then taking it away. They covered his face with a breathing mask after suctioning his mouth for any other petals. Doyoung noticed the petals were mainly red with white speckles as they pulled them out and tossed them in another toxic bag. Jaehyun’s eyes were red and bleary from gagging, taking long, painfully deep breaths in while he pointed wordlessly at a yellow tube inside of his mouth.

“It’s a feeding tube. Unfortunately, we can’t take that one out yet, we’re not sure if your body can handle solid foods.” A nurse explained. Jaehyun nodded slowly, his eyes crossing when he felt a coughing fit coming on. Doyoung stood up, eyes meeting Jaehyun’s own before Jaehyun clamped his lips shut and swallowed hard. “You need to cough the petals out. If you don’t cough them out, we’ll have to reinsert the breathing tube.”

Jaehyun was swallowing the petals, Doyoung thought, while his eyes welled up with tears. After all this time sitting beside Jaehyun, holding his hand and hoping Jaehyun would squeeze his hand back, he just felt so overwhelmed at the sight of Jaehyun’s warm eyes.

The nurses spoke to Jaehyun softly, reminded him that his throat would be sore from the tube for a while, and then took their leave after ensuring he was stable enough to breathe on his own. Jaehyun and Doyoung were left alone for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. Jaehyun darted his eyes away from Doyoung, throat too sore to even speak as he looked away.

 _He must hate me_ , Jaehyun thought while blinking away hot tears, _he must think I’m disgusting for what I did. I’m a freak and he knows it now._

Kim Doyoung had other plans for Jung Jaehyun.

Instead of running away in fear, calling Jaehyun a freak, or even sneering in disgust, he slowly slid his arms around Jaehyun. He squeezed as tightly as he could, mindful of the IVs and tubes before Doyoung sobbed, outright cried into Jaehyun’s shoulder. Jaehyun lifted his hand tentatively, fingers hardly brushing against Doyoung’s faded orange-dyed hair and trembling with fear as he pulled away. Doyoung mumbled something into Jaehyun’s shoulder, something that sounded vaguely like an apology. Jaehyun wanted to ask what for, why Doyoung felt the need to apologize when _he_ was the one in the wrong for ever falling in love with Doyoung.

“You idiot.” Doyoung mumbled. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He pulled away, wiping his face free of tears. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with somebody?”

Jaehyun’s heart sunk in his chest.

“You’ve been sick for so long... so long, Jaehyun. I never even noticed. You’ve been in love.... What kind of a friend am I?”

_No, Doyoung, it isn’t your fault you didn’t notice, it’s not your fault._

“And... and you could die from this person not loving you back.” Doyoung twiddled his fingers. “How could you fall in love with somebody that doesn’t love you back, Jaehyun?”

_I didn’t mean to, but I don’t regret it, I don’t regret any part of falling in love with you._

“You’re such a dummy.” Doyoung let out a half laugh, his eyes sad and glazed over with tears again. “Only you could fall in love with someone in such a tragic way, right?”

_Only me._

“Jaehyunnie....” Doyoung began softly, his voice sounding particularly soft and vulnerable as he wiped away another round of tears. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Jaehyun’s eyes widened in shock, trying hard to keep his pulse from racing too quickly. And for a split second, Jaehyun didn’t feel the petals threatening to overwhelm him. Instead, they succumbed to his fluttering pulse, to his sweaty palms and—

“Hyung.” Jaehyun croaked, Doyoung shaking his head frantically at the sound Jaehyun’s scratchy voice.

“You shouldn’t be talking, Woojae, you should be resting after having that tube in your throat. If you strain your vocal cords.... I’m sorry, I won’t talk anymore.”

“I don’t want to die.”

Doyoung froze at Jaehyun’s sentence, heard how desperate and small he sounded, and Doyoung, overwhelmed with emotion, burst into tears again. Jaehyun couldn’t help but cry with him, tears pooling in his eyes before he blinked and they spilled over. Doyoung pulled Jaehyun into his arms again.

“Stay alive with me.” Doyoung buried his face in the crook of Jaehyun’s neck, lingered in his warmth and loving and asked whatever deity above to give Jung Jaehyun a second chance. “Please stay, please stay with me, Jaehyun.”

And Jaehyun had so much he wanted to say, wanted to beg Doyoung for his forgiveness for ever falling in love with him, and for making him worry. He wanted to wax poetic on how beautiful Doyoung looked even though his eyes were puffy and red and yeah, he definitely needed to blow his nose, but Jaehyun couldn’t deny the part of him which still held onto the notion that _no_ , he would not mind dying for Kim Doyoung.

But the stronger part of his heart pleaded, begged, _Jung Jaehyun, you don’t have to die for anybody. You should live for yourself._

  
  
  
  


After the two cried for a little while more (okay, a little really meant a half hour of crying, but Jaehyun had a _lot_ of tears to give), Jaehyun scribbled on a notepad that Doyoung should go home and get rest, because his eyes crossed whenever he rested his head on Jaehyun’s shoulder for too long, and he jumped awake more than twice while seated in the hospital chair. Doyoung reluctantly gave in when Jaehyun also scribbled down that he was starting to feel better, which wasn’t a complete lie. He felt his lungs start to fill more and more with air as he laid there and stared at Doyoung, his coughs less frequent and not as harsh as they had been before.

Jaehyun felt his own eyes start to cross as soon as Doyoung left. He blamed his sudden tiredness on how long he had been crying, how the flowers still fluttered in his chest in a way that was different, unusual, and for a moment, Jaehyun thought that the red petals must have been shifting to white. White was the worst of them all, so maybe the light airiness inside of him was a sign that his body was giving into the disease. He regretted sending Doyoung off so soon. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to admit he loved him.

  
  
  
  


The next morning, Jaehyun found himself face-to-face with Ten. His eyes were wide, studious, and then a smile stretched across his face as he squished Jaehyun’s cheeks. Johnny chided him from beside the bed, Jaehyun nearly jumping when he heard Johnny’s sudden and deep voice before he realized he was still in the hospital.

“Hey.” Ten hummed soothingly. “Guess what?”

Jaehyun quirked a brow at Ten.

“The nurses said they pulled out a pink petal today.”

  
  
  
  


_Retrograde_. That was the word Ten used to describe it when his petals went backwards, when he stopped coughing them up at an alarming rate and his healthy returned to normal. And Jaehyun was scared. Had he fallen out of love with Doyoung? The older hadn’t stopped by the hospital to visit him in days, but he knew he was still feeling the same love in his chest at the thought of his friend. So it couldn’t have been that.

Retrograde felt nice.

  
  
  
  


When Jaehyun was discharged from the hospital, the nurses commenting that the disease had gone in reverse and he had most likely fallen out of love, Jaehyun had to argue with the manager as well as Lee Soo Man in order not to undergo the surgery. While the symptoms had disappeared, they suspected it would happen again, and they couldn’t risk Jaehyun showing symptoms again in public, or worse, at a performance. They said he had lost too much weight, looked tired, and he knew, he knew all of these things, but the petals were _gone_ , so why couldn’t they just leave him alone?

And they pressured Ten the same way, told him he should just avoid it altogether and be healthy and normal, but Ten firmly told them he wouldn’t, and if they didn’t like it, he would gladly leave the company without a second of hesitation.

Jaehyun was jealous of Ten’s confidence and courage. He wished he had the same backbone to stand up to them, but every time he tried, they brought up how much he had scared the other members. He hadn’t even seen them yet, and he was already afraid to his very core of the looks they would have on their faces when they saw him again. Disgust. Repulsion. Fear. He didn’t even want to imagine how terrified the younger members must have been when he was throwing up piles of petals and a pool of blood. He’d never be able to look them in the eye again.

As the van pulled up and the manager reminded Jaehyun to consider the surgery seriously, he let out a vague noise of acknowledgment, and quickly walked out of the van. Escorted by a security guard, they quickly bustled through the groups of fans who rushed for a chance to see him. Normally Jaehyun wouldn’t mind smiling at a few of them, even waving and thanking them, but he just wanted to be inside, go to his room and bury his face in his pillow until he fell asleep for hours and hours and maybe forever. Sleeping forever sounded nice.

Jaehyun’s resolution melted in the back of his mind at the sight of Doyoung standing in the lobby of their building. His hands were folded neatly in front of him, a timid smile on his face as Jaehyun walked in and kept eye contact with him. The guard walked away without bothering with Jaehyun anymore, and Jaehyun grinned weakly at Doyoung. His heart still ached in that familiar way it had every time he saw Doyoung. Nothing had changed. Maybe it was the few days they spent apart that made his petals reverse, and maybe that same night, he’d be throwing up piles of petals and blood again, but for now, he just wanted to look into Doyoung’s eyes and lose himself in them for a while.

“Welcome home, Jaehyun-ah.” Doyoung bowed quickly.

“Ehh, what’s with that?” Jaehyun teased, Doyoung’s cheeks flushing light pink as he looked down at the ground. “What happened to calling me Jaehyunnie, and Woojae, hm?” Jaehyun poked at Doyoung’s side, making the older flinch as a giggle escaped him. “‘Our Jaehyun’?”

Doyoung’s grin widened, and he instinctively moved to cover it with his hand. Jaehyun hadn’t seen him do that in _years_ , and he was suddenly reminded of the first time they had met, of how Doyoung hid his smile behind his hands because he thought it was ugly, and Jaehyun furrowed his brows, hands moving on their own accord and pulling Doyoung’s hand away by his wrist.

“Yah, why are you doing that again?” Jaehyun said. Doyoung flushed brighter when he realized he had done it unconsciously, and he stammered out a response.

“Embarrassment?”

“Well, don’t be embarrassed.” Jaehyun pinched Doyoung’s cheek. “You should show off your smile all the time.”

They started walking to their shared dorm rooms, following a familiar path upstairs while Jaehyun kept quiet. Why wasn’t he feeling the sharp pains in his chest? Why wasn’t he nearly doubled over in pain when their hands brushed one another’s, and Doyoung was the first to jerk his hand away and apologize, as if he had touched a scalding hot stove?

But Jaehyun couldn’t complain.

Doyoung cleared his throat, caught Jaehyun’s attention as he looked anywhere but at Jaehyun.

“As for calling you Woojae... well, maybe I don’t want to share you with the others anymore.” Doyoung said sheepishly, cheeks tinged red as he stammered and stuttered nervously. Jaehyun smiled suspiciously at his friend, nudging him slightly as Doyoung let out a huffing laugh. “You can be my-Jae, not our-Jae.”

“If I didn’t know better, Doyoung-hyung, I’d say you’re hitting on me.” Jaehyun grinned widely as they approached the door to the shared dorms, stopping in his tracks as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. Doyoung reached his hand out to the door, stopped only when Jaehyun shook his head and stood in his place. “Not yet.”

“What’s the matter?” Doyoung said. “Don’t you want to go inside?”

“The others... the others are in there, right?”

“Of course.” Jaehyun said. “When we found out you were being discharged, we all took the day off.”

“I don’t want to see them.”

Doyoung furrowed his brows. “Why not?”

“They’re going to think I’m disgusting.” Jaehyun shook his head. “Donghyuck and Jeno, and Jaemin and... I don’t want to see them!”

"Oh, Jaehyun, you don’t really think they’re going to react that way, do you?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Jaehyun said. “After what I did? I was repulsive.”

“Jaehyun.” Doyoung said his name tenderly, stepping forward and resting his hand on the crook of his neck. His fingertips were cool to the touch, Jaehyun shivering under his touch as he nodded slowly. “You were in _my_ bedroom when it happened. I watched it happen. If anything, I’m the one who should be disgusted. But I’m not, I’m right here with you.” Doyoung gestured towards the door. “And they’re not going to be disgusted either. So c’mon.”

Jaehyun swallowed thickly, his tongue suddenly feeling like it was made of sand, throat dry, but not tight or constricting. He nodded and stepped forward, knees nearly knocking together as he watched Doyoung twist the doorknob open, allowed Jaehyun to walk in first. The dorm was mostly silent, save for a few quiet chatters from the living room, as Jaehyun waited for Doyoung to walk in after him. They stepped in slowly, heartbeat heavy in his chest as Jaehyun found all of the other members sitting in the living room.

Mark looked up first, eyes widening as soon as he saw Jaehyun, dark circles framing his coffee brown eyes. He wanted to say something so bad, wanted to speak, but nothing came to mind. Surprise rushed through him when he felt Doyoung’s fingers slide over his own, squeezing and reassuring him that he was still there, still beside Jaehyun, still grinning without covering his face.

And all at once, Mark jumped out of his seat, ran up to Jaehyun and threw his arms around him, followed by Donghyuck, Jeno, Jaemin, Chenle, Renjun, and Jisung, all of the youngest first hugging him as tightly as they could. Then Donghyuck burst into tears while pinching Jaehyun’s shoulder.

“You jerk! We’re supposed to be a family, you’re not supposed to hide stuff like that!”

Jaehyun blinked away his surprise, eyes wide as Donghyuck proceeded to chide him. Mark, too overcome with his emotions, buried his face into Jaehyun’s shirt, which reeked like the hospital he had been stuck in for days. The others pulled away, made room for Hansol and Taeil and Ten, who squeezed Jaehyun just as tightly as the younger members had. And maybe Jaehyun started crying with them, but he would never admit that, not even as he felt Doyoung hug him from behind, holding him in his arms while he held onto each of his friends, and apologized for not telling them sooner.

  
  
  
  


Jaehyun sat up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night on his third night back in the dorms, heart thudding hard in his chest as he clutched at his shirt. Gasping coughs left him, eyes wide as he took long, cool breaths of air into his lungs. Mark grumbled in his bed, started to roll over with a grimace on his face, though his eyes were still shut, so he was sleeping. Jaehyun, out of fear, rushed out of bed without even slipping on a pair of slippers, closing the door behind him. The living room was quiet, empty except for the ambient noises of vents and the fridge running as he searched for a place to go.

Instinctively, Jaehyun tried to cough, tried to clear his throat as he dipped his fingers past his lips, but found no petals. He sighed and fell onto the couch face first.

The doctors had mentioned he’d be coughing out petals for a while, even said that it’d be normal for him to spit up blood, but they never mentioned the nightmares he’d have every night where he imagined himself doubled over on the floor, throwing up petals and blood and his insides. He tried to erase the images by blinking them away when he woke up, but to no avail.

Quiet footsteps echoed through the dorms, followed by a tender, loving voice Jaehyun practically melted at.

“Woojae? Are you okay?” Doyoung said softly. Jaehyun let out a quiet noise into the couch, knowing it wasn’t clear enough to be a “no”, but he had a feeling Doyoung knew the answer already. “I haven’t been able to sleep. I heard a door open, so I thought I’d come out and see who else was awake....” Doyoung hummed as he moved to the opposite side of the couch, sat down and pulled his knees to his chest. “Do you want to talk?”

“It’s nothing.” Jaehyun shook his head into the cushions again, felt Doyoung’s fingers tangle in his hair. He scratched his head softly, just behind his ears, and Jaehyun thought if he were a dog, he’d be kicking his leg as much as he possibly could. He let out a soft sigh of satisfaction as Doyoung smiled down at him, told him to scoot closer and rest his head in his lap. Jaehyun followed his instructions easily, laid his head down in Doyoung’s lap and stared up at the ceiling while Doyoung brushed his hair away from his face. If it were anybody else, he’d complain about showing off his forehead, but with Doyoung, it was all right, he decided. It was okay if he saw this side of him. Doyoung let out a light laugh.

“What’s that look on your face for?” Doyoung beamed. Jaehyun stuttered, cheeks warming instinctively as he rolled his eyes and looked away, an embarrassed smile still tugging at his lips. “It’s cute.”

“You’re so embarrassing.” Jaehyun said.

“You’re the one smiling like that.” Doyoung moved one hand from Jaehyun’s hair to pinch his nose, wiggling his head back and forth with a grin on his face. “Hey.”

“Mm?”

“You’re having a hard time sleeping too, right?” Doyoung said, and though his sentence ended in a question, he knew it was more of an observation, and an obvious one at that. For the past three nights after Jaehyun rushed out of his own room to avoid waking Mark, he fell asleep on the couch in the living room. He had been woken up by the sound of Yuta and Ten awake in the kitchen, for some reason always the early risers as they bustled around and searched for food. Ten must have told Doyoung, he thought before he let out a noise of confirmation. “It’s okay, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I thought... maybe we could try sleeping in the same bed?” Doyoung offered, his face immediately reddening in a way that made Jaehyun want to coo at and take a picture of to keep in his wallet or something cheesy like that, but found himself blushing as well, eyes widened in surprise as Doyoung shrugged. “I just... you know, we’re both having trouble, but I think I’d be okay if you were next to me, and I would hope you’d be okay with me next to you, a-and— I mean, it’s just a friend thing, we definitely don’t have to because it’s weird or something, I under—”

“Hyung.” Jaehyun said. “Yes. Yes, let’s go to bed.”

“Right now?” Doyoung raised his brows.

“Uh, yeah?” Jaehyun replied with an obvious tone. “Why, do you want to stay out here?”

“No, not at all.” Doyoung said quickly. “Just shocked that you agreed so quickly.”

“W-well....” Jaehyun trailed off. “It’s not like the others don’t sleep in the same bed too. So... so it’s not that weird.”

“My room or yours?” Doyoung asked. Jaehyun shrugged, but before Doyoung could say anything, he quickly appended, “your room,” because the thought of burying himself in Doyoung’s sheets, savoring his scent and being flooded with his warmth and just _being_ there with Doyoung was enough to make his heart leap in his chest.

It felt like a lifetime— the walk to Doyoung’s room— quiet and careful not to wake Johnny up, even though the older slept like a rock, probably couldn’t be woken up by an atomic bomb going off beside his head, despite the fact that he constantly prided himself that he had “hearing like a bat”, to which Ten always joked that he was as blind as one too.

Jaehyun crept in first, waiting for Doyoung to shut the door behind him as he gestured towards his semi-small bed— not nearly big enough for two people to share comfortably, but Jaehyun didn’t mind giving up some comfort for a few hours of sleep. He slipped under the covers, hid his face behind them as Doyoung followed closely. Wordlessly, Jaehyun parted his legs and let Doyoung slide one of his own between, limbs tangled comfortably together as they scooted closer. Doyoung looked up from the sheets to Jaehyun’s cozily warm eyes, a flush feeling spreading in his chest at the sight of how close Jaehyun’s face was to his.

Jaehyun took a deep breath in, pulling the duvet even closer to his face as Doyoung smiled at him.

“Your bed smells nice.” Jaehyun commented softly. Doyoung nodded.

“Smells like me?”

“Yeah. Smells like you.” Jaehyun inhaled again. “Sweet.”

Doyoung flushed lightly, nodded and let his eyes linger on Jaehyun’s lips, the apples of his cheeks, the curve of his eyebrows and the way his eyes focused on Doyoung in a similar manner. The atmosphere around them was different, cultivated into something like honey and warm milk with cinnamon but in a feeling, and Jaehyun didn’t realize his hands had moved out from underneath the blanket to cup Doyoung’s cheek until it was too late, until he realized Doyoung was nuzzling into his hand and sighing in relief, as if he had wanted to do the same thing. Jaehyun ran his thumb across Doyoung’s smooth skin, savoring the warmth of his cheek before his eyes wandered to Doyoung’s pink lips. Doyoung felt Jaehyun’s pointed gaze on him, wanted to say something about how embarrassed he was, but his mind told him to keep quiet, just for a second longer, just a _second—_

“Doyoung-hyung?” Jaehyun said.

“Yes?”

“I think....” Jaehyun trailed off, eyes searching for an answer in Doyoung’s own. He suspected Doyoung already knew what it was Jaehyun wanted to say, and for a split second, Jaehyun feared the flowers would come back, would overwhelm his body and his senses and he begged, _please, please let me have this_. “I think I’m in love with you.”

“You _think_?” Doyoung repeated. Jaehyun shook his head quickly. “You don’t love me?”

“I— no, I meant, I _know_ I love you.” Jaehyun corrected himself. “I know I’m in love with you.”

Doyoung’s eyes softened, nearly glazed over with tears as he sniffled.

“Jeez, you big crybaby.” Jaehyun joked, but Doyoung was already wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands.

“Shut up, jerk.” Doyoung huffed. “Do you know how many times I’ve told myself to just tell you the same thing since you got home from the hospital?” Doyoung hardly gave Jaehyun a pregnant pause to answer. “A lot! I’ve told myself a lot!”

“You’re in love with me.” Jaehyun breathed out. Doyoung nodded.

“I am. And I’m so sorry it took me so long, Jaehyun. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re in love with _me_.”

“How long?” Doyoung asked. Jaehyun paused.

“Three.... Almost four years.”

“Oh god, Jaehyun, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m the worst friend, I can’t believe I never noticed. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Jaehyun tacked on sheepishly. “I’m good at lying. Besides that, I just thought telling you while I was sick would be manipulative. Like I’d be forcing you to love me?”

Doyoung shook his head, pressed their foreheads together as their gazes met. Jaehyun shook under Doyoung’s fingers on his neck, pulling him closer before he could feel Doyoung’s breath ghosting his lips. Jaehyun searched for approval in Doyoung’s eyes, Doyoung nodding and watching as Jaehyun parted his lips ever-so-slightly and wet them with the tip of his tongue. Then he leaned closer, tilted his head so he could better slot his lips between Doyoung’s own. And everything felt so right, even though Johnny was snoring in the background, and maybe Jaehyun’s lips were a little _too_ tense, it was all so beautiful and comfortable and _right_. Jaehyun languidly parted his lips, kissing Doyoung and letting his hands rest on his sides. Doyoung hummed against his lips when Jaehyun peppered a kiss to the corners of his lips, his chin, then the tip of his nose before returning his attention to Doyoung’s heart shaped lips.

“If you want to make up for not knowing,” Jaehyun teased, “you could keep kissing me like this for the rest of the night.”

“And not get any sleep?” Doyoung replied just as cheekily. “I’m shocked, Woojae. We have a busy schedule tomorrow.”

“Forget all this idol stuff.” Jaehyun smiled and pecked another kiss to Doyoung’s lips. “Let’s run away.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. We can go anywhere. If you keep kissing me, I’m okay wherever.”

“Hmm....” Doyoung pursed his lips pensively, Jaehyun’s hands gripping to his waist as he rolled their bodies over, Doyoung on Jaehyun’s hips as he yelped and placed his hands on Jaehyun’s chest to keep himself upright. He smiled, let out a breathless laugh as Jaehyun pushed himself up on his elbows to kiss him again. “Paris?” Doyoung punctuated the word with a lazy kiss.

“Uh-huh.”

“Rome....” Another kiss, and Jaehyun hummed in approval. “Barcelona—” a kiss, approval. “— Tokyo—” Doyoung ventured towards Jaehyun’s neck, lips lingering a little longer than before as Jaehyun sucked in sharply. “— London—”

“Maui.” Jaehyun breathed out as Doyoung carefully pushed his shirt away to expose his collarbone. “New York.”

“Hong Kong.” Doyoung continued, and Jaehyun nodded as soon as Doyoung bit down on his collarbone. His fingers tangled in Doyoung’s hair, pulled him back for another kiss unlike the others they had shared before. Their lips parted, Doyoung’s tongue barely brushing against Jaehyun’s soft bottom lip as he shivered. “You’re right.” Doyoung said. “We _should_ run away—”

“Look, this is really romantic and all, but you two woke me up out of a dead sleep, so... shut up.” Johnny boomed from his side of the room, Doyoung and Jaehyun both flinching at the sound of his voice before Doyoung’s face went beet red with shock, burying his face in the crook of Jaehyun’s neck and whining high in the back of his throat. “I think my subconscious couldn’t take the cheesiness in this room right now. I woke up to tell you both to chill out.”

“Sorry, Johnny.” Doyoung said after taking a long breath in and forcing himself to form an actual coherent sentence, and not just whines out of embarrassment. Johnny snickered into his pillow.

“It’s cool. Just, like, don’t wake me up later on with weird stuff, all right? Again, totally support you two, but think of the children. Keep it PG.” Johnny buried his face in his pillow, sheets rustling as he tried to get comfortable again. Eventually he huffed and sat up. “Never mind, I’m gonna go sleep with Chittaphon.”

“Chittaphon?” Jaehyun and Doyoung repeated Ten’s real name at the same time. Almost nobody ever called him that, only a few select and far between used his real name. Ten was just so much easier. Johnny stopped in the doorway and threw them both a backwards glance.

“Uh yeah, Chittaphon? Tiny, skinny little thing, lots of piercings? You’ve probably met him once or twice.” Johnny teased before closing the door to the room. They heard another door open a second later, followed by quiet voices echoing through the vent. Ten sleepily whined from his room, voice barely audible over the ambient noises, but Jaehyun and Doyoung laughed anyways when they heard, “ _Hyuuuuuung, there’s not enough room in the bed for both of us.”_ Jaehyun giggled when he realized Doyoung was still blushing brightly.

“Embarrassed?” Jaehyun asked. Doyoung pouted.

“Clearly, how could I not be? I can’t believe he woke up! There have been times where I had to hit him with things just to wake him up, but _now_ he chooses to be a light sleeper?”

“Well, he’s gone now, so....” Jaehyun trailed off suggestively, Doyoung weakly hitting his chest as he laughed and leaned down to kiss Jaehyun again. “We can always do more than kissing.”

“What, like cuddling?”

Jaehyun sighed heavily as Doyoung burst into a fit of giggles and laughter, falling off Jaehyun’s hips and burying his face in his sheets.

“Sure. Like cuddling.”

“I’m joking.” Doyoung said from beside Jaehyun, sliding his hand over Jaehyun’s chest and letting it rest over his sternum. His eyes wandered from Jaehyun’s eyes to his nose, down to his lips and then over his soft jawline. He watched as Jaehyun swallowed thickly, Adam’s apple bobbing as he did so before watching him take a long, soothing breath in. And Doyoung could remember being with Jaehyun that night he threw up red petals, how his breaths were short and shallow, how he thought it was weird that Jaehyun was breathing like that, but didn’t say anything.

Doyoung pushed himself up on his forearms, leaning towards Jaehyun and pecking a kiss on his lips before Jaehyun turned to him, cupped his cheeks and kissed him again. They hardly parted for breath, Jaehyun stopping once to reposition himself on the bed before he returned to focusing all of his attention on Doyoung, on his soft lips and the way his hair felt as Jaehyun tangled his fingers in with his brown hair.

When Doyoung pulled away, he watched Jaehyun take another long breath in, and his heart inexplicably swelled at the rise and fall of his chest, at his pink cheeks and loving expression on his face. He wanted to tell Jaehyun how beautiful he was, how he looked like an angel with Doyoung’s impersonal white sheets framing his body like a halo, but all of it boiled down into a simple phrase, words repeated over and over between them before they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  
  
  
  


A call from his mother interrupted Jaehyun on one particular day of dance practice. He excused himself to take the call, hoped the others wouldn’t be too angry that he had to take a break, but they hardly batted a lash as they wished him luck on the phone. He stepped out to the hall, voice soft when he answered.

“...Eomma?”

“Yoonoh.”

Despite the lack of use of his birth name, Jaehyun found himself tearing up already.

“I called to ask for your forgiveness.” She said, her voice sounding beyond soft and embarrassed. He could imagine her seated at their dining table, cigarette hanging from between her fingers while smoke danced around her in a way that only his mother could make look desirable. Jaehyun blinked away tears, wiped his eyes and nodded, though he kicked himself for doing something she couldn’t see. “I don’t deserve it, but I’m still asking.”

“It’s okay.” Jaehyun said quickly. “It’s okay, I don’t hold it against you.”

“You nearly died. I didn’t even see you in the hospital. In the end, my own pride is what nearly cost my relationship with my son.” His mother said, and he realized this was one of the first times he had heard his mother speak so honestly. “You’re feeling better.”

“Yes, I am.” Jaehyun smiled.

“Did the feelings disappear, or...?”

“No.” Jaehyun said, hesitant to hear his mother’s reaction, but she sighed into her end of the phone. It sounded vaguely like relief, or maybe that was what he _wanted_ to hear in her voice.

“Then they’re reciprocated. Somebody you work with?”

“Yes.” Jaehyun answered easily. “But please, don’t tell anybody. Obviously we have to keep it hidden.”

“I’d never.” His mother said softly.

They let silence brew between them, Jaehyun counting the measures of his mother’s breathing while he tried to relax his heartbeat and remind himself that it was good that she was calling him, that she regretted treating him that way after finding out about his feelings. Clearly, she wasn’t rejecting him. He couldn’t ask for anything more.

“The company... they called me when you fell ill.” She admitted timidly. “Considering I’m your mother, they were obligated to. They asked me if I wanted to perform the surgery on you. They called it a decision of life or death.”

Jaehyun’s heart lurched in his chest.

“I debated it for a day. I thought, my son could be fixed! His feelings, and that silly crush of his, all of it would be gone, and he’d be successful and healthy.” Then he heard a crack in her voice as she took a long breath in, voice quivering. Jaehyun’s eyes widened, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by her confession. “But— well, then your father came home, and I looked at him as he stepped in the front door, and I felt this swelling in my chest at the sight of him.... Despite how tired and cranky he was from work, and how he fell asleep on the couch immediately after sitting down, I just... I realized if I had the surgery done on you, you would never have a moment like that in your life.”

Jaehyun fought breaking down into tears, but to no avail.

“When I called the company back, they said they would do it on their own without my approval if your condition became worse, that they wouldn’t let you die in such a way.” She paused. “You wouldn’t believe what I said, Yoonoh. I was so angry, I started screaming at them. I went, “If you touch my son, I will sue this company so fast, I’ll own it in a day!”” She mimicked her high pitched tone, Jaehyun letting out a sputtering laugh mixed with a cry. She did the same, a groan leaving her. “You would’ve been so embarrassed at my behavior, but how dare they ever threaten to do something like that? To you? I told them I’d pull you out of their company and sue, and then you’d go join another company, or start your own, and you’d be more successful than that one is! Ah, I went off like a lioness.”

“Eomma, really.... Such an over the top reaction.” Jaehyun said embarrassedly, but he was quietly proud and thankful for her words, for the way she had protected him when he couldn’t do it himself. “Thank you.”

“I should be thanking _you_ for forgiving me, Yoonoh. I will never be able to make up for the fact that I didn’t visit while you were in the hospital, nor for how I reacted to your feelings, but... well, I would really like to meet him sometime. Whoever he is.”

Jaehyun heard the door to the practice room click open, his eyes darting towards the door to find a sweaty and red-faced Doyoung peeking over the edge. He smiled at the sight of his parted lips, how his chest heaved while he caught his breath and grinned at Jaehyun, pure love in his smile when he waved.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay.” Doyoung said. Jaehyun crooked his finger towards him, urged him to come over and shut the door, so Doyoung followed his instructions.

“Eomma, are you still there?” Jaehyun said. His mother let out a hum of confirmation. “Eomma, you’ll be able to meet him properly soon, but for now, you can talk to him on the phone.” Jaehyun said, and Doyoung’s eyes widened, a different, deeper shade of red settling on his cheeks as he pointed towards the phone. Even Jaehyun’s mother was stuttering, a nervous mess when Jaehyun pressed his phone to Doyoung’s ear.

“A-ah, hello, ma’am— I mean, Jaehyun’s mother— I mean, _Yoonoh_ ’s mother, er, Mrs. Jung—” Doyoung hid his face in the palm of his free hand. “I’m Kim Doyoung.”

Jaehyun grinned at the sight of a flustered and embarrassed Doyoung, his boyfriend swatting at him playfully as he shook his head helplessly. Still, Jaehyun could hear his mother’s voice from the phone, her tone serious, but sort of airy, and... hopeful? Jaehyun wanted to call it that, wanted to say it was hope in her voice as she spoke to Doyoung. Doyoung hummed out a response to her questions, acknowledging her split seconds after she spoke in order to be respectful. Then Doyoung stuttered over his words, eyes darting down to the ground before he mumbled a response to Jaehyun’s mother.

“Yes, I promise to take care of Jaehyun— Yoonoh, I mean.”

Doyoung responded to a few more of her questions, his face growing more and more heated before he handed the phone back to Jaehyun.

“He sounds kind, Yoonoh. I like him already.” She hummed softly. “I have to get going now. Your father has a business dinner.”

“Okay, eomma. I miss you.”

“I miss you so much, my son. Be well. And take care of Doyoung, too. I love you.”

And just like that, the call ended. Jaehyun watched as Doyoung pressed his forehead to the nearest wall, sighing heavily as he forced himself to calm down for a second. Jaehyun snaked his arms around his waist, squeezing appreciatively as Doyoung playfully tried to push him off.

“If I had known you wanted me to talk to your mother, I never would’ve come out! _Aish_ , I probably made such a bad first impression, she didn’t sound like she liked me.” He sighed heavily, almost overdramatically so. Jaehyun smiled, glanced around them to see if there were any staff members walking around, but the halls were silent, save for the loud noises coming from inside the practice room. Jaehyun turned Doyoung around, peppered kisses over his face, and pulled away with a beaming grin.

“I’m in love with you.” Jaehyun said.

“I know.” Doyoung replied softly as Jaehyun caged him against the wall.

“I’m in love with you, Doyoung-hyung.”

“I know.” Doyoung said again. “I think you’ve told me every day since you confessed.”

“I just want to make sure you remember.” Jaehyun said, leaning in for a kiss. Doyoung let out a noise of surprise at his openness, because the idea of getting caught was becoming more and more possible, especially out in the hall like this, where any staff members could walk past them or even glance out of one of the business rooms they were in at the time. Still, Doyoung melted under Jaehyun’s lips, fluttering his eyes shut as he lifted his hands and rested them on the back of Jaehyun’s neck.

When they parted, Doyoung nodded towards the practice room.

“We should get back in there, you know. Finish up dance practice before we do anything.”

“Ugh, but I don’t want to dance anymore.” Jaehyun nuzzled his nose against the crook of Doyoung’s neck, even though Doyoung protested and said he smelled like sweat and that was gross. Jaehyun didn’t care, even kissed his skin tenderly as he breathed against his neck.

“Jaehyunnie?”

“Mm.”

“There’s a special on couples smoothies at a store down the street. If we finish early, we can stop by there and share a smoothie.”

“Really?” Jaehyun stood up straight, excitement in his eyes as Doyoung tucked a piece of his hair behind his ear.

“Yeah. Let’s get back in there and finish up, okay?”

“All right!” Jaehyun exclaimed, quickly turning back to the practice room door. He beamed, full of renewed energy to dance, but found all of the others lying on the floor, panting, sweating, out of breath. Yuta even looked like he was starting to actually fall asleep beside Hansol, who lazily shook him awake. Yuta grumbled something in Japanese, Hansol nudging him and muttering in Korean, his dialect heavy on the tongue. Yuta pinched him back, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Uhm,” Jaehyun punctuated, “what happened?”

“ _Ten_ happened.” Johnny grumbled from his side of the room. Ten sat on the floor against the mirror, panting just as hard as everybody else, waving weakly at Jaehyun and Doyoung. The others didn’t appear to have the energy to explain, and Taeyong looked just as sleepy as the rest of them. He raised his voice, only loud enough for the room to hear.

“All in favor of going home and sleeping for the next two hours?”

“Please— for the love of God— my legs feel like they’re gonna fall off— dude, you _reek_ —”

Jaehyun smiled at the chorus of chatter from all of them as they slowly rose to their feet. Mark groaned heavily, reaching his hand out to Donghyuck and lifting the younger to his feet as well before they trudged out of the room with quiet squeaks leaving their lips.

“Ten, I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow.” Johnny grumbled from beside Ten, pinching his ear as Ten swatted his hand away.

“I know, I know. I’m feeling it in the backs of my thighs too.” Ten rubbed his hips. “And my waist. And my back. Everywhere.”

“Let’s take a shower when we get back.” Johnny said. Ten hesitated, cheeks pink before he nodded.

“I wouldn’t mind taking a shower with you.”

“I didn’t say we’d take one together.” Johnny grinned. Ten flushed even darker.

“W-well, who said I wanted to shower with you anyways!”

“You did, just now. Like you said those words.”

Their bickering faded away as they (barely) walked downstairs, their sore groans echoing through the building as Jaehyun glanced at Doyoung.

“How did dance practice ending early happen like that?” Jaehyun said.

“I dunno.” Doyoung shrugged. “Fate?”

“That’s cute.” Jaehyun said. “Fate.”

“Well, don’t mock me!” Doyoung replied defensively. Jaehyun giggled.

“I wasn’t. I meant, that’s a cute way to think of it. Fate wants us to go get smoothies together.” Jaehyun felt his face heat up. “That’s a little cute, don’t you think?”

“Mm, you know what’s cuter than that?” Doyoung hummed, moving his hand to Jaehyun’s cheek and cupping it with a grin.

“Me!” Jaehyun exclaimed.

“No, I was going to say it’s really cute when you offer to pay for my smoothie.” Doyoung smiled even wider when Jaehyun groaned and reluctantly agreed to pay for it, because he was such a sucker for Doyoung’s eyes and his slight pout when he said it, and besides that, Jaehyun could always ask for more kisses afterwards in exchange for paying.

When they stepped out of the building together, their pinkies were laced together. Dangerous as it was, Jaehyun couldn’t bring himself to care much as he took a long, deep breath in. Seoul had never smelled so sweet before in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> why were some of the conversations in italics??? did ten tell doyoung??? who won the mario kart competition??? we just dont know
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read!!
> 
> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/iIyssssm) or [tumblr](http://ilyssssm.tumblr.com/)!!! ♥♥♥


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